


Countdown

by passionate_crimes



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Basically a twist on the whole Soulmate watch thing, Dystopian society, F/M, Fate vs Free Will, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Science Fiction, Soulmate-Identifying Timers, Soulmates, totalitarianism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-27
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2018-07-27 02:08:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 40,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7599265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/passionate_crimes/pseuds/passionate_crimes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When they're young, every child has a Watch implanted on their wrist. The Watch is a countdown, jumping up and down throughout your life. When it reaches zero, you meet your Soulmate, the person you're destined to spend your life with.<br/>... Right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is a bit of a dystopian twist to the soulmates prompt that everyone loves. I've always found it to be a little too perfect for my tastes, so I'm trying this bit out. More will be coming soon!  
> As always, any comments are appreciated. xx

The story of Soulmates was first told to John by his mother.

The very first time had been when he was almost too young to remember. He had crawled into her lap with tears in his eyes, still in pain from when the doctor had first placed the Watch in his wrist. The pain was too much for his young mind to understand, and he looked up at her with frightened eyes, asking silently why all of this was necessary.

“You see the countdown on your wrist?” she asked, taking his swollen arm and pointing to the implanted machinery. He sniffled, and nodded. “It’s counting down to when you’ll meet your Soulmate. See?” She laughed softly, as the number was something along the lines of 999d23h59m. “But you don’t have to worry, you’re still young. You’ve got a bit of time before you’ll worry about meeting her. But then, when you meet her, you’ll be together forever.”

John’s eyes widened, and he glanced back up at her, the worry increasing in his gaze. At that age he was still frightened of girls, even his twin sister, and the thought of spending his whole life with one was too much.

His mother smiled once more, and shook her head. “You’ll like girls someday, John Watson,” she teased him. “Just you wait.”

In that time, that was all he needed. As he grew older, and the size of the Watch was adjusted to meet his growing arm, he still would curl up close to her. When he was too old to crawl into her lap he would sit beside her, and she would tell him more about the stories.

“When you meet your Soulmate, the countdown reaches zero,” she explained softly.

“Is that what happened when you met Daddy?” John asked excitedly, taking her hand and looking at her Watch, which was now blank.

“Yes,” she told him, with a small smile.

“And then you get to live happily ever after?”

This time there was more of a pause after this one, and his mother took a small breath, as if steadying herself, before answering. “Yes,” she murmured, grimacing and nodding.

At the time, John had thought nothing of his mother’s quiet tone and faraway look. He only thought of how close he was to his mother, and of how much he adored her. Those moments, late at night, were the only time that he had her all to himself, without Harry also vying for her attention.

And soon, just like every other child, he became enamored with his Watch.

It was a distraction, a catharsis. At age six, the numbers on the contraption began to tick downwards, and he had squealed in the middle of his arithmetic class. They had found her!

From then on he glanced down at his Watch whenever he had a free moment. 656d18h28m. But then the next day-- 828d02h20m. No! Then--274d10h28m. Yes! Closer!

At any given point, in school, at the bus stop, during a commercial break on the telly, each child would be watching their wrist, waiting for that little ticker to hit zero.

The Watches were also part of the school curriculum, and as they went through the levels they were taught more and more about what they meant, and how important they were.

Some time ago, people had no way of knowing who their soulmates were, it was explained to them. There were awful divorces, children born out of wedlock, sexual deviancy becoming more and more accepted, all because people didn’t know how to find their true love. So the government made certain to find everyone’s Soulmate, and to help everyone find them. That way, the people would be happy, and the children that would be created would be in their rightful place, with the biological mother and father.

It was exciting. Throughout his entire life, as he stared at his watch, whether it was as he waited to be picked up from swim practice or during his mother’s funeral, he took comfort in knowing that somewhere in England, there was a girl doing the exact same thing, waiting for him to come and find her. He would find her. They would find each other, and they would ease each other’s pain, and they could be happy together.

In adolescence, things became slightly more complicated. In his eighth year in school he found himself absolutely enamored with a girl, so much so he was convinced for several weeks that his Watch was broken. It wasn’t, of course, and the crush was one sided. It was then that it was explained to him (by a teacher, of course. His father still seemed slightly in shock that his children were growing up, five years after his wife's death) that these fleeting ideas of love were nothing compared to what it would be when he found his true Soulmate.

As they grew older, their health class punctuated very clearly how wrong it was to become intimate with anyone other than your Soulmate. It was a very important issue, they were told. Not saving yourself for the person you were destined for was not just disrespectful to them, but to yourself. Anyone who did such a heinous act, they were warned, would not escape discipline.

While it was true that extramarital sex of any kind was illegal, everyone soon figured out that it was an area of law that was very rarely enforced. As long as they didn’t have to see it, and it wasn’t some incredibly immoral or deviant act, no one ever cared to know.

Most parents would refuse to let their children even date, wanting them to be completely pure for when they met the love of their life. But there was a collection of them in John’s class, boys and girls who were rebellious, or, like in John’s case, had parents who hadn’t seemed to notice that they were now teenagers, and that they needed protecting. They all took advantage of that, having quick flings of kisses and gropes at sixteen, knowing that this was all just temporary.

Snogging was fantastic, he learned very, very quickly. Feeling breasts was fantastic. _Sex_ was fantastic. But even then, when she fell asleep beside him, his eyes would wander to his Watch. If the number had gone up since he’d last checked, he'd wince, and wonder if perhaps he truly was being punished for sleeping with someone before he had met his Soulmate.

There were a few people who in that time would find their Soulmate, although John only knew of a few couples. John burned with envy whenever he saw them kissing in the hall, or holding hands in classes.

John hadn’t been that lucky. In one instant, when he was fifteen and on holiday with his family, the watch had managed to get down to 3d15h32m (he’d memorized the number). He was ecstatic, bursting full of all the romantic movies he had seen of this, planning what he would wear in three days, when he saw her, how he would act, what he would say to her.  But the following morning, it had jumped back to 183 days. The vacation was ruined, and John moped for the rest of the week.

Harry had found her Soulmate at twenty-one; everyone had been so jealous of her, especially John.

The jealousy faded within a few months, however, when she had called him late at night, her voice angry and loud. Eric was drunk, she exclaimed, had thrown a lamp, was yelling, and she was currently hiding in the bathroom in case he was still manic.

Other things came out, too, later. In their sporadic chats, Harry would complain about him never cleaning up, about humiliating her, about the bras she would find that could never have been hers. It made John furious. How on earth could such a pompous ass be his sister’s Soulmate? The twins had never gotten along, but that hardly meant she should have to deal with some cheating bastard for the rest of her life.

But there was nothing he could do. Eric had the legal standing. No officer would separate the sacred Family, even if there wasn’t a baby yet. It was only when someone was in mortal danger that they removed the Soulmate.

Harry’s situation had shaken him greatly, and for a few months in medical school, he’d taped over his Watch, feeling so full of rage and sorrow for his sister. He didn’t want to see it, he didn’t want to belong in a system that let beautiful, talented girls like Harry waste away with monsters like Eric.

Finally a concerned counselor had taken him aside, and through their sessions he continually reminded John that the system couldn’t be absolutely perfect, and of course not all pairs could be love at first sight. But Eric was obviously someone who needed to be helped, to work through his issues, and wasn’t his headstrong, tough attitude sister just the perfect person to help him become who he was supposed to be?

Slowly John began to accept that (although Harry had stopped returning his calls when he mentioned this reasoning to her), and he was drawn back into the allure of that countdown. It took him a week to realize he was looking back down at his wrist as a reflex, and reading off those pixelated numbers, the ones that were taunting him with how long he had until he wouldn’t ever have to be alone.

It was nice to have that faith back, though. Just the Watch itself was somewhat comforting, knowing that there soon would be a time when he would have a soulmate. He just had to wait 348 days. 176 days. 493 days. Whenever the Watch thought it best for him.

That cathartic presence helped him as he was bored to tears during his medical exams, kept his mind focused on the future when his father died, kept him sane and on the ground during those sleepless, painful nights when he contemplated jumping out of his bedroom window because living hurt so damn much.

When he went into his mandatory deployment service in his twenty-fifth year, and was subsequently called to serve in the current war, it still was there. Whenever he had long patrols that lasted for hours, when the food was hideous, or when he was unable to sleep because the screams wouldn’t leave his head, the pixels whirring in his arm would let him block it all out, just for a few moments. He would find her. He would find her when they finally would send him home, and all the nightmares and pain and loneliness would disappear once he was in her arms.

Then he was shot.

Embarrassingly, he was almost surprised by it. He’d known there was a large chance that it would happen, but after living on the battlefield, the risk of sudden death became mundane; the bullet piercing through his shoulder had been a rude awakening more than anything.

As he fell to the ground, he couldn’t help but turn his head and stare at his wrist, those blood spattered numbers still flashing before his eyes. Even as he went into shock, he stared, refusing to be pulled into unconsciousness, like his body was desperately trying to do.

 _What would happen to her?_ he thought, his eyes fixed on the watch as he was loaded onto a stretcher, ignoring the shooting pain that rushed through his shoulder by the jostling.

At that moment, he honestly believed he would die. In the final moments, before he was forced under sedation for surgery, he prayed. He prayed to a god he hadn’t believed in in years, one he still didn’t believe in.

_Please, God… Let me live. Let me live to meet my soulmate, please, Lord…_

And apparently, God had listened.


	2. 95d05h29m

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh man. This chapter was a mother to write. Worldbuilding, and bringing something new to one of the most famous and important Sherlock Holmes stories every is incredibly difficult. Some things I just had to cut and will put in other chapters, but this still is incredibly long. The other chapters will not be so arduous, I promise.  
> Up next, the actual plot!

_They’re arguing again. They try to keep their voices down, but John can hear the anger and frustration like a punch to his gut._

_He curls up tighter, clutching his blanket close to his chest._

_“You_ never _listen--” a clause breaks through, his mother, her voice shaky._

 _“I’m_ trying-- _” comes his father, but he can’t hear anything else concrete._

_They finally quiet down, and the door to his and Harry’s room opens slowly. John quickly shuts his eyes, and tries to even his breathing to match Harry’s._

_Their mother steps in, and John can hear her uneven breath. She’s been crying._

_She kisses Harry on the cheek, then walks over to John’s bed and kisses him too. He wants to reach up and hug her, promise that it’s going to be okay, that he’ll protect her. But he’s only five years old, and he knows he can’t do anything, so he pretends to be asleep until she leaves._

 

* * *

 

After he’s shot, he’s packed up and sent back to London at shocking speed. It’s all just a blur of morphine and bureaucratic papers, and official notice that he was being honorably discharged.

It didn’t seem so honorable.

There wasn’t really anything to return to. Harry was the only person he told that he was back, and even then the tensions between them weren’t gone. She tried to ask him to stay with her, saying that she and Eric had found common ground, whatever that meant, and gave him some money for clothes, and her old phone. He declined, deciding instead to go back to London. He wanted a new start, and London, the largest city in England, seemed like the best place to avoid running into someone he knew.

But the difficulty with that is living all alone in a large city can be just as isolating as living on an iceberg, John quickly discovers.

He jolts awake from a nightmare at just the crack of dawn, and groans to himself, falling back on his bed and reflexively checking his Watch.

95d05h29m, it reads. It’s been getting closer, ever since he’s gotten back to London, but not moving fast enough.

And so the day begins.

It’s just like every day. He gets up, he goes to his army ordered therapy, tries not to curse out everyone he sees. When it’s finally over he leaves as fast as he can, wanting just to run down the street and through that stupid park to get to the tube, to go _home_ , even if it didn’t feel like home.

“John? John Watson?!” he hears a voice call as he limps his way through the park. _Oh, God, no_ , he thinks, wincing to himself, and stops. This sort of thing wasn’t supposed to happen. He takes a breath, and fixes a fake smile on his face before he turns.

He then blinks, not recognizing the large man in front of him.

“Mike Stamford!” the man exclaims, a warm smile on his face. “From med school!”

“Oh!” _You got fat_.

“Yeah, I got fat.”

“No!”

They shake right hands, the customary greeting, all while glancing to the other’s Watch, to see how close they were. John saw that Mike’s is blank. He’s already found his Soulmate. Despite knowing how ridiculous it is, an adolescent feeling of jealousy fills him. That feeling of _why does_ he _get a soulmate and I don’t? I deserve it more than him._ He can’t help it. Mike was spared war during his service, and instead managed to find love. _Not fair._

But he’s looked for too long, and now Mike notices as well.

“Ah… Congratulations,” John says quickly to save himself. “How long?”

“Oh, about three years now,” Mike responds, giving the awkward smile in return. “We’ve got two boys… It’s all crazy, I--” He stopped abruptly, and John could see something lingering in his old friend’s eyes, almost like nostalgia, or regret, before he quickly snaps himself out of it. “Anyway, let me treat you to lunch. It’s been far too long!”

John politely accepted, not about to turn down a meal that would be paid by someone else, especially by someone who had done their military service without being sent to battle. Besides, Mike was right. It had been far too long; not just since seeing him, but since having any real contact with a living person that he wasn’t forced to have. As Ella had said, he needed to go out of his comfort zone more.

“So, where are you living nowadays?” Mike asks back at the table, pulling John out of his daydream. “Get a fat pension from the army?”

John laughs at that, whether or not Mike had meant it as a joke. “Oh, yeah, enormous. Just trying to think of what to buy first with all of it.”

Mike gives him a pitying look, one that makes John cringe, and he quickly tries to come up with something else to say that can save him from that damn look.

“I’ve been thinking of getting a flatshare, but really, who would want me for a flatmate?” he says, keeping up a faux grin for the joke, and gestures to himself.

Mike doesn’t laugh, instead looks almost spooked. John furrows his eyebrows.

“What? I’m not that bad, am I?”

“N-no, of course not,” Mike says, laughing awkwardly to make up for his mistake, shaking his head. “It’s just… I had someone else say that exact thing to me today.”

“Really?” John asks in surprise. That’s possible the strangest and most coincidental thing that’s ever happened to him. “Who?”

 

* * *

 

Sherlock Holmes is mad. Absolutely, stark raving mad, that much is incredibly obvious to John.

When Mike first leads him to the lab, John is immediately struck by the man standing over a pipette. Struck is a bit of an understatement, actually, but he’d never admit that. The porcelain pale skin, the shining blue eyes, and dark curly hair reminds John of an old china doll his sister used to have, even down to the curved lips. Beautiful, yet peculiar, and slightly terrifying, like those sweeping eyes would never look away from you, even if you fell asleep. And there’s a strange sensation inside him, something John can’t quite explain, but some feeling of warmth and the realization that something was about to change.

Mike introduces John, and John reaches out a hand, his eyes on the pale, bony wrist that snakes its way from the table and takes John’s hand firmly. The way the man moves his hand, however, keeps the back of his hand up, making his palm, and his Watch on his wrist, invisible to John.

Even stranger is when John looks up, and realises the man is looking in his face, not his wrist, as is customary. The pensive gaze of those eyes make him shiver, and he steps back awkwardly. Before he can even say something, the pale man speaks.

“How do you feel about the violin?” he asks.

Completely insane, up to Bedlam standards. Anyone who can somehow read minds, or for whatever reason _know_ things like John’s limp, occupation, personal qualms (although he had mistaken Harry to be his brother), even things John didn’t know (Was Harry really an alcoholic?), would have to be crazy.

John stands there after the man leaves, slackjawed, unable to think of a single thing to say, before turning to Mike with a look of bewilderment.

“Yeah,” Mike chuckles. “He’s like that with everyone.”

Yet that night, as he’s thinking about how insane and rude this mysterious man is, he already knows that he’s going to move in with him.

 

* * *

 

John has just enough money to take a cab ride over to this new flat the following morning, and he glances down to the Watch just as he opens the door. 92d03h45m. Perhaps this would be a short living arrangement, he thinks as he gets out, at just the same point Sherlock Holmes pulls up, and lets him in.

The flat is messy and disorganized, full of old books that seem like they had some category, but John can’t figure out what that is. Probably the best way to describe Sherlock’s mind, he thinks to himself as he glances back to the doll-man, who currently was fixing some flaw in the curtains that he couldn’t see either.

The most bizarre thing, is the skull on the mantelpiece, something that John can only stare in shock at.

He whirls around to face Sherlock once more, but he isn’t able to ask his question before Sherlock suddenly jolts into ramrod straight posture, and turns towards the door expectantly.

“What are you…?” John trails off as he hears the door slam, and footsteps rushing up the stairs. They’re heavier than the new land lady’s, and soon a well-built, stocky man appears in the doorway, looking out of breath. John’s about to ask who the hell he is, until he sees the recognition in Sherlock’s face.

Sherlock doesn’t make any move to approach the man, only gives him a half smile, and traces the backside of the curtain with his hand, and looks expectantly at him.

“Another suicide,” the man pants out.

“Not a suicide,” Sherlock disagrees, his half smile growing into a smirk. “At this point I think we can rule it out as a cause of death, hm?”

“Right, fine, whatever you want to call it,” the man sighs, rolling his eyes, until they finally settle on John, whose brow is furrowed in confusion as the others talk. “Who’s this?”

“I told you that I was getting a flatshare, who do you think it is?” Sherlock asks, sounding annoyed as he looks through the clutter for something.

The man blinks, his eyes still on John.

“Erm, John Watson,” John quickly quickly says, holding out his right hand and giving the other an apologetic smile.

“Greg Lestrade, Detective Inspector” the man replies, grimacing and gripping his hand in a tight greeting. His Watch is blank too, but that’s a bit more expected, he looks at least half a decade older, if the salt and pepper hair is anything to go on. “I would say I’m Sherlock’s part-time boss, but I don’t think he’d like that.”

“More like ‘keeper,’” Sherlock mutters, having retrieved a coat and a scarf from the mess. “Look, are we going, or not? At this rate there will be another body when you stop talking.”

What?

Lestrade scoffs, and this time he’s the one to smile apologetically to John. “Yes, I’m coming,” he says, turning and walking down the stairs, with Sherlock rushing down after him, while John stands, dumbfounded.

What on earth does Sherlock Holmes do for a living?

He can’t help but feel a bit envious, though. Whatever the two men are after, it sounds fascinating. Would it be odd to ask Sherlock about it when he comes back? He wonders as he collapses in one of the chairs, wincing at his leg.  It isn’t fair. Most days his leg hurt more than his shoulder, which infuriated him to no end.

In that moment, Mrs. Hudson chooses to come up and fuss over him. He stops listening the moment she mentions some remedy to help with joints, because he knows exactly what she’s talking about, and he’s sick of all of it, sick of everyone looking at him and pitying him--

“Damn my leg!” he snaps, more at the world than at his new landlady, but she just happens to be in the room, and jumps.

Shit. Immediately he feels guilty, but she’s already down the stairs before he can get an apology out. He huffs and falls even harder against the back of the chair, in an even more sour mood now. Maybe he wasn’t ready for society yet.

He’s so lost in his own thoughts that he doesn’t hear the heavier footsteps on the stair, but he glances up just as Sherlock steps back into the room.

“You probably saw a lot of death, in Afghanistan,” he said. Not a question. John furrows his brow, and nods, slowly getting up. “Lots of suffering, divided loyalties… The breakdown of civilization.”

“Yeah,” he says carefully, not sure what Sherlock is implying. “Every day. Far too much, for any man.”

Sherlock nods slowly, his solemn look transforming into another wicked smirk. “Want to see some more?”

“Christ, yes.”

From there Sherlock practically drags him out the door, and hails a cab, shouting some unknown location as they drive. In the privacy and relative silence of the car, John finally asks him how he knew all that about him, and in response gets some flurry of random things that John would never have been able to connect. Tan wrists, the way he stood, the engraving on the phone.

It’s obvious that Sherlock enjoys explaining his methods, even though he pretends to be annoyed at having to describe such an easy thing to him. In the darkness of the cab, with just the hints of streetlamps pouring in, Sherlock really does look like a porcelain doll, but far too animated for one, his lips are too turned up, but his eyes certainly are wide enough, and there’s something… mystifying about watching this. If it were any other person John would probably be tempted to punch them in the face for being a twat, but this man is… far too exotic looking for that. The way his hands move with such ease, to take his phone, to tap his leg, it’s almost dreamlike. No, it’s like a ringleader, completely confident and showing off his tricks, all for the audience of John.

Which doesn’t mean that John takes great joy in telling him that Harry is actually his sister. Sherlock’s gorgeous expression changes to annoyance, to frustration, back to annoyance. John can’t help but laugh as the car pulls up at the kerb.

“But, um, besides that, that was rather good,” John says. “Brilliant, really.”

Sherlock, who has already taken a few steps towards wherever they were going, stops, and turns to John with another wide eyed look. _Now_ he looks truly like a porcelain doll. “Really?” he asks.

“Of course. What else would it be?” John asked with a small laugh, but Sherlock shrugs, and turns back. His smile slips. There was definitely more to that reaction, probably some harsh memory of the past hidden in that simple shrug.

A part of John’s heart aches for whatever Sherlock had had to deal with before. Some people didn’t seem to see the majesty that John saw, maybe.

Within a few moments Sherlock is walking up the steps to some derelict building, and promptly gets into some heated argument with a police sergeant at the door, complete with a remark about her knees (something that goes over John’s head), he suddenly is forced to wonder what the hell they’re doing here.

“We’re here for a crime scene, obviously,” Sherlock says, answering John’s unasked question. Once more he started to wonder if Sherlock was actually some sort of a mind reader. “You’ve read about the suicides, I gather.”

He had. So far the story had not become a huge phenomenon in the press, but there had been a snippet in the first few pages of the newspaper. Three people, all wealthy socialites, all found in odd places, with a fatal dose in their system. Not one of them had a history of being suicidal before. A small jolt of excitement runs through him, but he manages to keep a straight face as they step into the bare room, where an older woman lay face down on the floor.

The detective inspector he met before is already in the room, attaching his police Monitor device onto his other wrist, and pressing it a few times. John watches him calibrate it for a few moments in amazement. He’d never seen one so close before, except for in the movies. They had a similar Monitor in the army, of course, but it was much more basic, only able to track your movements and record vitals. (It hypothetically also should have shown body masses through heat technology, but in the Afghan sun that feature was useless.) The police monitor, however, had several applications and modes. You could access the entire database, record notes and crime details that would then find similar crimes, if there were any. You could even record data into some of them, John remembers seeing, and he wonders absently if he’ll get to see Lestrade input any evidence here.

A quick clearing of the throat distracts him, and he turns to Sherlock, who has his eyebrow raised.

“Well, you are a doctor, yes?” he hums. “Would you mind doing analysis on the body?”

Oh. Right. John pulls himself away from his fascination of the wrist monitor, and drops to his knees to look over the body.

She’s only been dead a few hours, rigor mortis has just started to set in. It’s a bit difficult to do an examination on her because of this, but John does manage to tilt her head back enough to get some glimpses.

She has the face of a woman who was probably very beautiful in her youth, although now her skin is now ashen and pale, and her eyes are bloodshot, almost bulging out of her skull. Foam still is present in her mouth, still blocking her windpipe. John can’t help but shiver, and feel slightly grateful that he’d known better never to try pills, back in his suicidal days. It was the most passive way to off yourself, but far from the most pleasant as you were fading.

Right beside her body, near her broken nails, are carved letters into the rotting wood, spelling out “RACH” before the marks become too light to comprehend.

“What’s your medical opinion?” he hears Sherlock from behind him, knocking him out of his thought process. He looks up to see both the porcelain detective, and the real detective staring at him, expecting some answers.

“Well, I can’t give much on just sight alone, I’d have to ask for an autopsy to be done for all the specifics, but… It seems like she’s asphyxiated. If I had to put forth a hypothesis, I’d say an overdose of some drug.” He grimaces. “Maybe even strychnine, cyanide, rat poison of some kind, if she was desperate enough.” In this type of old building, there probably was some old cyanide traps somewhere that she could have forced herself to take.

But Sherlock shakes his head, surprising John. “It wasn’t suicide,” he states.

Lestrade turns to him, pen still to his monitor. His expression is a mix of curiosity and annoyance, and he raises an eyebrow. “You think it was murder.”

“Of course,” Sherlock says casually. “People of her status don’t travel out of town to commit suicide in abandoned subsidized housing.”

There’s a sigh from Lestrade. “And how do you figure that she’s from out of town?” he prods, looking like he knows he’ll regret asking this question.

Sure enough, Sherlock immediately launches into an explanation, with various sprinklings of insults at how no one else could see this. Something about her dress being wet, something about jewelry, something about the screen of her Watch being rubbed and scratched often.

“... Given the style of the dress, and the levels of makeup on her face, she also had to be some sort of madam--”

“Wait, a madam?” Lestrade stops him. “You really think so? Because of her makeup?”

Sherlock gives an exasperated sigh. “No law abiding woman would wear that shade of blush,” he explains, as if the DI were a child. John coughs to hide his laugh.

“Sherlock, I can’t just write ‘madam: makeup’ into the case notes.”

“Run her fingerprint, see for yourself.”

Lestrade rolls his eyes, and John leans in to watch him press her thumb to the screen. Sure enough, a mugshot and description comes on. Lestrade stands up and pulls the monitor closer to him before John can look at it though.

“Shit,” he mutters. “A prominent one, too. Three arrests and no consequence whatsoever. Had to have had some politician in her pocket.”

John feels a small shiver run through his spine. That made this a high risk case, didn’t it? Sex trafficking and brothels were rare, but the ones that were around were buried deep underground--it was one of the most heinous crimes, after all, a place where deviants got their fill of corrupt acts, and preyed on children or wayward youths, girls and _boys_ who had to please the scum of society…

But Lestrade’s face lights up slightly. “Could that be what this is? Some bloke trying to purge the corrupt wealthy--”

“No,” Sherlock says immediately. “These crimes are personal. He chooses poisons that take time, that hurt. He probably watches them die. This isn’t a vigilante.”

Another pursed frown makes its way onto Lestrade’s face, and he shakes his head, tapping something on his screen again. “What’s connecting the chairman of a nonprofit committee, a widowed octogenarian, an estate lawyer, and a madam?” he asks, shaking his head.

“And what does ‘Rach’ mean?” John asks. The two men look at him, as if they both forgot he was there.

Sherlock looks down at the writing again. “I haven’t the slightest idea,” he says, wrinkling his nose. “She was writing more.” His eyes get a far away, concentrated look, and for a few moments the only sounds were Greg pressing a few buttons into the monitor. John watches Sherlock with a furrowed brow. He really is curious. From the way he acts, though, the fast talking, the small insults, he’s starting to see why many here don’t seem to like him. Yet he was much gentler with John, which is also odd in itself. It isn’t as if John is special in any way, or on any level as Sherlock when it came to intelligence--

A sudden gasp escapes from Sherlock, causing John to jump. The detective whirls on his feet, and he’s suddenly gone, with thundering footsteps down the stairs.

John blinks in surprise, and looks around in confusion. Did he miss something? Lestrade doesn’t look as if this is anything out of the ordinary, so John isn’t left with much except to limp down the stairs after him.

By the time he reaches the sidewalk, Sherlock is long gone, nowhere to be seen. Great. What’s he supposed to do now?

“He does that,” someone says behind him, and John turns to see Lestrade pocketing his monitor and shaking his head.

John is starting to get the feeling that he’ll hear that a lot more. He huffs to himself, readying himself to limp down the street, and find a cab. Irritability was starting to rise in him, as he considered that maybe that was all Sherlock needed of him, a medical opinion. Even though any doctor could have given him that. He could have at least said _goodbye_ before running off.

Just as he starts down the sidewalk, he hears the detective inspector clear his throat.

“Erm… I've got to track him down anyway, and ah, if you wanted I could take you back to the flat,” he says. “You don't look up for walking much, and the main road is quite a few blocks down.”

John knows precisely what Lestrade is trying to get at, this pity is almost dripping from his voice, and as much as he wishes to tell the man to shove it, and start off anyway just to spite him, he is aware that the other is right. He doesn’t know where he is, and he doesn’t have the money for a taxi. _Dammit._

He turns to the detective inspector, and nods tersely. “Fine, yeah,” he sighs.

This time, the drive to the flat is completely silent, and the awkwardness is almost tangible, but John can’t think of anything to say. He doesn’t have any connection with Lestrade after all, and it seems like this is the only time he’ll really be needed by the other, what can he say?

Instead of talking John busies himself with looking over all the gear in the police car, the monitors and gears that must have some purpose, although he can’t think of what.

He lets Lestrade into the flat when they finally reach Baker Street, just because he isn’t sure what else he can do.

“Erm, I’m, ah, going to unpack,” he says, and Lestrade nods awkwardly in return, leaving John to limp over to his three boxes, among the assorted chaos that is Sherlock’s belongings here.

He notices that the other has already put some items in the downstairs bedroom, which is baffling to him. Did Sherlock not notice the fact that John _couldn’t fucking walk_?

He drags a few of his own boxes into the room, grumbling to himself as he does so. Sherlock can deal with taking his own things out, he decides, at about the same time he hears the door slam.

“Where the hell were you?” he hears Lestrade, and he steps into the living room to peek in.

“Doesn’t matter,” Sherlock sighs, shaking his head. He looks exhausted, like he’s just run from somewhere. “I was trying to find Rachel.”

“Who?” Lestrade asks incredulously. “Who the hell is Rachel?”

Sherlock gives him a look that seems to say ‘how have you survived this long’. “The writing!” he exclaims. “Rach! Rachel! They were a dying woman’s last words--so to speak-- Rachel has to be important!”

Lestrade shakes his head. “Right, of course. Ignoring however you figured that out -- You do know how many strings I have to pull to get you to crime scenes? You can’t just run off again! You didn’t answer any of my questions, or--”

Sherlock huffs loudly, cutting off the older man. “Fine, what are they?” he asks.

Lestrade has an annoyed look as he turns on his monitor. “How he’s finding his victims. There’s no sign of struggle in any of these cases, yet people don’t just willingly go to their deaths like this.”

There’s a moment of silence, where Sherlock presses his lips together. “Haven’t the slightest.”

“Liar.”

“Certainly not!” Sherlock exclaims, sounding hurt. John furrows his brow as the man crosses the room to the window, glancing down to the street again. “I don’t think they knew they were going to their deaths. And it doesn’t matter. We need the connection, there has to be a connection between them all! That’s why we need to look for Rachel!”

“And how do you suppose we do that? There are probably thousands of Rachels in London alone,” Lestrade reminds him.

Sherlock is silent for a few moments, and in his profile John can see his calculating eyes narrow. They look up from the street, and glance at John for just a moment before turning to Lestrade. “Give me your monitor,” he says.

“What? Pardon?” Lestrade asks, blinking in surprise.

“Your monitor,” Sherlock repeats. “Telling you what to do and then waiting for you to complete that task will take far too long, letting me use it will take far quicker.”

Lestrade still looks unsure. “You’re aware that that’s completely against police protocol--”

“All I’ll do is look up a few entries to see if a Rachel will come up,” Sherlock says, in a sweet voice that makes John do a double take. “We’ll even wire it to another screen so you can see everything I’m doing.”

In the few moments it takes Lestrade to think, Sherlock pulls out his computer, and starts up the square screen. After some tapping, the Scotland Yard logo appears, and he holds it out for Lestrade to connect.

Finally the detective inspector sighs, and presses his wrist to the other screen. “For now I won’t question why your device is compatible with police devices,” he mutters as he takes off the monitor. Sherlock gives a bright smile and straps it on his own arm.

John can’t help but step closer to watch the screen with Lestrade, as it lights up and shows a small map, with a purple dot in the centre, presumably where they are now. Sherlock taps a few points into it as he moves away from the window.

“So, what was it that you wanted to--” Lestrade cuts himself off, and as they both turn around they realize that Sherlock is once again not in the room.

“Are you serious?” Lestrade asks. “Christ, what the hell am I supposed to do with him? Where the hell is he even going? Out of all the insane things he’s done…”

John tunes out the other, as he glances back to the screen. Sherlock’s purple dot is moving, fast. Far faster than what would be on foot. _What the hell_? Where is he going? How did he get a cab so quickly at this hour?

A cab. A car only seen when needed, and never thought about otherwise. People get in and out of them dozens of times a day, and never even bother to look in the front seat to see who was driving…

That’s how he’s getting them.

What the hell was Sherlock doing?

“... after three years you’d think he’d stop being such a fucking prat all the-- what are _you_ doing?” Lestrade asks, as John grabs the tablet and rushes out the door himself.

 _I have no idea_ , John thinks to himself, but he rushes downstairs and out the door. All he knows is that Sherlock is in danger.

The first cab he sees flies by him, and John rushes farther down the main road, cursing to himself.. The second one screeches to a halt, and he just about lurches inside, directing the cab driver as best he could.

Finally Sherlock’s dot stops, and the cab pulls up to where it’s frozen. John gets out, and feels his heart sink. Two buildings right next to each other, perfectly identical, too close to differentiate on the police monitor.

But there isn’t time to think. It’s just like a mission. He has to find the target, neutralize the enemy, and every second is a wasted one. He takes a large breath and rushes into the left one.

He races through the building, shouting Sherlock’s name, floor after floor. What if he got the wrong building? What if it’s too late?

“Sherlock!” he shouts, turning the corner, and freezes when he sees an ajar door, light pouring from it. There are voices, and he immediately recognizes Sherlock’s rumbling baritone.

He pulls out his Sig, drawing it at his hip as he slowly approached. Examine the perimetre, secure threat, use caution when going in. His back is pressed against the wall, and he moves in, walking slowly into the room with his gun drawn.

Sherlock comes into view first, sitting in a relaxed position at the table, and across from him is an older man, large, with baggy clothes that obviously do not fit him, despite his big size to begin with. His entire appearance suggests that he’s seen better days, but they’re long gone.

“Ah, John, you managed to join us. Fantastic,” Sherlock says, an almost cheerful chirp to his voice. John looks at him in confusion, but he keeps his gun steadily pointing at the old man’s chest. He has killed four people, after all.

The cab driver smiles, though, and leans forward. “Good lad… Just out of the war, aren’t you?” he asks, his voice raspy with years of tobacco use. “Tell me, who are we fighting now? Hard to keep track. Is it the Swampies still? They were nasty buggers when I fought with ‘em. Or is it the Khans now? Or anyone new?”

John blinks, wrinkling his nose at hearing the slurs thrown about so easily. He glances to Sherlock again, who shrugs, and he clears his throat.

“Erm… Yes, Afghanistan,” he says carefully. The cab driver chuckles coughing and covering his mouth. John can see that his Watch has been removed, with the ‘C’ branded beside his wrist. _Convict_.

“‘Course. Always a war on now. Probably said they stole something of ours, hm? Self-righteous battle the buggers in charge never get involved in. Ever noticed how they never say what we’re really fightin’ for? The least they could do is give us a look at Helen if we’re fighting for her, you know?”

John swallows, unease building inside of him. That wasn’t true. He fought a good cause, to keep this nation safe, to stop militants from invading them…

Sherlock clears his throat. “Anyway,” he reminds the man. “You were saying. You were a petty thief, and fell in love with some landowners daughter, and then...?” John’s confusion increases. Was this man really telling him a bloody story? After murdering four other people?

“Oh. Right,” the cab driver waves a hand. “Well. The next part’s obvious, innit? We were young. Stupid.”

“You impregnated her,” Sherlock guesses, sounding intrigued.

He nods, slumping forward even further. “By that point her parents had found her Soulmate… But he was some pious prick who never let her shine. She didn’t want him. We were going to run away. I had a contact at that point who ran boats for people escaping, we were going to go off abroad, have a proper life as a family away from this place.

“But then I was arrested. Theft. Was just supposed to be a six month sentence, and we had a plan that she would go, and I’d join her…” He pauses, and if it weren’t for the circumstances John would feel compelled to comfort him. “But he found out, somehow. He _did_ something to her, but covered it up. Someone showed me her obituary, said she’d died of pneumonia before her wedding night. Who dies of pneumonia in July?

“And he knew who I was. He wouldn’t let me get out. I was supposed to just be in for six months, but they tracked me, put me down for every infraction, building up my sentence over and over! I was in for thirty years!” Tears come to his eyes. “They destroyed my life! They _killed_ her! I had nothing left! So tell me, if you went through all of that, and three months into your cabbie run the man who destroyed everything walked right into your fucking car, wouldn’t you kill him? It would inspire you, that’s for damn sure. I went after all of them, until I got to the truth, until they were all gone.”

There’s a moment of silence, the three men soaking in the story, and emotion, but John can’t help but ask, “What happened to the child?”

The cab driver looks up at him, wiping at his eyes. “Same thing that happens to every child who’s not born to Soulmates,” he snarls, venom dripping from his voice suddenly. “Sold, off to the sex fiends. The old bitch finally told me that. Made her be raised as a whore, no registration in the world, no other choice in life!”

All of John’s blood runs cold. That can’t be true, can it? A child, _made_ for that hideous life… But it suddenly occurs to him that they’ve never mentioned where the prostitutes come from in all the news stories. None were ever returned to grieving parents, relieved to have a kidnapped child back in their arms…

Sherlock, on the other hand, has calculating, calm eyes, and he nods emphatically. “Hence the lawyer, who signed the papers to transfer her, hm? And the madam who kept her,” he says quickly. “But what happened to her? You went after each victim to learn more about the next one, what did the madam tell you?”

A deep, shuddering breath leaves the cab driver, and he shakes his head. “She’s dead. Long ago. Some john got his rocks off by blood, went too far… She was only thirteen.” A small sob leaves him, and he shakes his head. “My Rachel. I never even knew she existed.”

 _Rach_. The last thing Miss Wilson wrote before dying. An attempt to give this girl a record, perhaps… So many years after her death, after she came and went with no one even noticing.

It can’t be more of another few moments of silence, but it feels like an eternity before Sherlock speaks again. “Mr. Jefferson, I’m sorry to have to say this, but I am going to have to turn you in for this,” he sighs, sounding truly regretful.

The cab driver sighs, and wipes at his eyes once more, before a small smile comes on his face. “That’s disappointing,” he sighs. “Thought you were different, I did. ‘S why I told you my story. But I guess you’re like the lot of them, aren’t you?”

Sherlock stands, presumably to apprehend Mr. Jefferson, but John takes a few steps towards him, his gun still drawn. The driver’s tone of voice has shifted, he sounds dangerous now, like a suicide bomber holding a girl hostage, or someone who had easily killed four people…

Before he can see the man’s next move, a gunshot goes off, and just as the sound of glass breaking reaches him John immediately pushes Sherlock down, covering him while trying to keep a visual on what occurred, his gun still held at the ready for whatever bomb or grenade is thrown in next--

“Er, John… Your elbow is pressing into my lung.” Sherlock’s voice under his shoulder hurls him into the present, and he glances down to realize that he’s completely on top of the detective, practically splayed. It’s a common maneuver, especially if civilians are caught in the line of fire, yet when it’s done in a common setting John can’t help but feel it’s slightly obscene. He scrambles off of Sherlock with a hurried apology, but the other man doesn’t seem to be thinking of that.

Instead, his eyes are stuck on the cab driver, who’s collapsed on the floor. John’s medical experience kicks in immediately, and he rushes the meter distance to the other man.

Blood has already soaked through the left side of his shirt. He’s gasping for breath, his eyes already becoming milky and unseeing. Even as John tries to speak to him, he can see the life fading, until he’s completely still.

“Christ,” John mumbles, glancing up to see Sherlock staring at the window the shot came from. Even without seeing his face, he knows what the question is, because John’s thinking it as well.

Sirens blare in the distance.

 

* * *

 

“So, he led you to some abandoned building to tell you his life story?” Lestrade asks them, his incredulous face highlighted by the neon police lights. “A serial killer. Wanted to have a friendly chat with you.”

“Well, it wasn’t _just_ that, but yes, he wanted to. He’d finished with his main targets after all,” Sherlock huffs. “I think he was planning something more, but he didn’t get to that, obviously.”

Lestrade glances to John, who is only able to nod, corroborating Sherlock’s story. The detective inspector sighs. “Right. Well, I’m going to need you to go over some paperwork here.”

“Later,” Sherlock waves his hand as Lestrade tries to protest. “We did just get shot at! I need time to recover, John needs time to recover! I’ll see you in the morning, if I feel brave enough to face the outside world.” He sniffs, a worried expression crossing his face.

Lestrade looks like he doesn’t believe a word of that, but sighs. “Eight o’clock sharp tomorrow, Sherlock!” he calls out instead, and the dark haired man just waves his hand again.

John follows after Sherlock as he brushes off more policemen, shock slowly settling in after that ordeal.

“You’re an idiot, you know,” he mutters softly. Sherlock turns at looks at him, with a raised eyebrow.

“I was in control,” he hums. “I knew you would be coming. That’s why I took the police monitor.”

“Right, yeah, complete control,” John sighs. “Predicted that bullet too, then? What was the point of all that?”

Sherlock sighs, and shrugs. “It’s only so often that you have a criminal with brains. I appreciate that,” he says. “Besides. Proved a point about you.” His eyes drop to John’s legs, and it suddenly occurs to the doctor that he doesn’t have his cane, and his leg only has a dull throb, despite having ran up three flights of stairs.

He feels his face turn red in embarrassment as they keep walking. Right. Psychosomatic. He just hadn’t thought something like this could make it disappear in a few hours.

His mind goes over the night again, and something sticks in his head.

“Sherlock, you wouldn’t happen to know… Children born out of wedlock aren’t actually… sold as sex slaves, are they?” he asks quietly. The detective raises an eyebrow and glances back at him.

“What did you think happened to them?” he asks in return, and John hates how he can’t come up with an answer. He had always considered the occurrence to be rare, but now that he thought of it, there had been two occasions where he and another girl had been stupid, and it had been a possibility. He now remembered that even then he hadn’t truly thought of it, figuring then that it wasn’t his problem.

He can feel Sherlock’ eyes on him, analyzing his shame, but before the detective can remark on it, a dark haired man in a pressed suit steps in front of them on the sidewalk, taking both of their attention away from what they had just been discussing.

The man in question is a few inches shorter than Sherlock, yet the way he positions himself he makes it seem like he’s the one looking down on the detective. He smiles broadly, but there’s something about it that makes John skin crawl.

“Ah, Mr. Holmes. Dr. Moriarty, of the Soulmate Allocation and Distribution Bureau,” he hums, holding out a hand. Sherlock’s eyes narrow, and he doesn’t take it. This doesn’t seem to phase Moriarty though, who just puts his hand back in his pocket as if no faux pas had taken place. “Excellent work on this case.”

Sherlock raises an eyebrow. “Why are you here?” he asks. “This was a domestic revenge plot. He had no plans to bomb your office or anything of the sort, seems like a waste for you to be here.”

Moriarty tuts, and shakes his head, his smile taking a patronizing edge. “You heard his story, Mr. Holmes. A very tragic tale, the highwayman and the landlord’s daughter. I’m sure he spun it beautifully.” He sighs, and his smile drops with sickening speed. “But the story cannot go public. There are a choice minority who would love to use this story as fodder, and try to destroy this nice civilization we have going. I’m already having the case moved to my office, to process. And don’t worry, we’ll ensure that no other child must go through what pretty little Rachel did. The police can’t be trusted to sort this mess. But I trust you, Mr. Holmes.” John can’t help but feel that the other is pretending he doesn’t exist, yet the edge in his voice seems like it’s directed at him. “You aren’t planning on spreading this story?”

Sherlock’s lips set into a scowl. “What purpose would it be to me?”

There’s that hideous smile again on Dr. Moriarty’s face, and he sighs in relief. “Good. I’m glad to hear it. I hope to see some more of you in the future, hm?” With that, he nods kindly to Sherlock, and walks back down the street, his whistle echoing off the empty buildings. John shivers again.

“What was that?” he asks quietly, feeling completely on edge after that exchange.

Sherlock is staring after Dr. Moriarty, a small scowl on his face. “I don’t know,” he mutters. “Come on, I’m starving.” All humor is gone from the detective’s face as he pulls his coat tighter to himself, and stalks down the street.

John stares for a moment, still confused, but runs after this new man, who’s somehow managed to shake up his entire life.

He doesn’t have much choice, after all.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! Thanks everyone for getting through that. As always, comments and questions are always welcome.


	3. 77d12h53m

_Intraocular melanoma, they say._

_The doctors do everything they can. So does she. Maybe they shouldn’t have done so much. Maybe they should have let her go while living didn’t hurt._

_She’s sick, and they say that the treatment will make her better, but it doesn’t. Each dose makes her sicker and paler, and nothing changes. She still goes blind in an eye._

_“It’s okay, John,” she tells him, cradling him in her arms even though he’s far too old for that. “I’m okay.” But he knows that it’s a lie, because he’s heard her crying, he’s seen his father hold her hair up as she throws up and screams, and even now she has to turn her head so much just to see him and he’s right next to her._

_She dies in a hospital bed, but she looks like she’s been dead for months._

_Harry keeps crying. His father is in shock, as if he isn’t sure what’s happened._

_And John is alone._

* * *

 

It doesn’t take John long to grow used to his new life, despite what everyone he tells this to believes. Chasing criminals, sleuthing about crime scenes, the long nights without sleep… It’s oddly comforting for him. He craves the danger, the adrenaline of running for his life that was so common in Afghanistan, but now, there’s a way out. After each case he’s allowed to go to bed and sleep, without fear of a bomb going off while he rests.

It’s more effective than antidepressants, at least.

Which isn’t to say that Sherlock Holmes is still anything less than insane. There are times when that cursed man wakes John up at five in the morning, just to rattle off some epiphany that John couldn’t care less about, or when John will swear his coffee cup has an aroma of formaldehyde. (something he’s decided not to question.) The most infuriating thing of all, John has decided, is when Sherlock sends John on errands. As if he isn’t a grown man with his own job and chores he has to complete, the detective, the self-proclaimed genius, forgets to get his bloody tailored suits from the dry cleaner, doesn’t wash his dishes, and it all is left to John to complete.

But even these frustrations seem to fit with the general theme. John thrives in chaos, and Sherlock Holmes is one of its best agents.

On one of these ridiculous errands, about three weeks after their initial case, John has to submit Sherlock’s will, and, of all things, return a library book. It wasn’t as if he has any desire to do such, of course, but Sherlock’s mobile had been ringing constantly with reminders from the library, something that the detective didn’t seem to notice or care, but for John, there was a set number of times he could hear the bridge to the hideous pop song Sherlock had as his ringtone, without him going on a murderous rampage, and that limit was approaching very soon.

The worst part, however, is that when he grabbed the book in question (a thick, terribly boring looking war epic with some busty woman on the cover, which Sherlock has clearly never touched since bringing it home), and fished out some notes from the detective’s wallet, the infuriating man glanced up from his mobile, raised an eyebrow, and said, in that smug, darkly velvet voice of his,

_“Would you mind getting me some eyes from the morgue? It’s not too far out of your way… But make sure they’re blue!”_

What a fucking twat, John fumes, gripping the book tighter. Does he really think that John has nothing better to do but turn in paperwork and bring home a dead body for the other? When he gets home, he’s really going to let that man have it--

Just as he’s worked himself into a mental tirade against his flatmate, he slows, just now noticing a sleek black car crawling alongside him. He stops, tensing as the car does as well. Before he can work through this mentally, an attractive, auburn haired woman pokes her head out the window. “It’s not wise to walk on that leg so much, Dr. Watson.”

John freezes, and she grins. “Come on. Someone wants to have a chat with you.”

He looks down at his leg self-consciously. His physical therapy has been showing a huge improvement, and he thought his limp was becoming far less obvious (Sherlock had even said so the previous night. _“You’re leg’s looking a lot better, John,”_ he had said, while not even looking up from the paper he was reading. _“It’s a nice change. It makes you look more striking, in control of a room.”_ The exchange had made John blush and stammer, although he didn’t know why).

John pauses, still trying to wrap his head around this situation. His war instincts slip on like a glove, and he leans back. “You know, as flattered as I am, I really don’t think-”

She sighs. “I’m afraid it isn’t quite a choice.” She gives him another bright smile.

It’s a trap, she isn’t even trying to hide it. He’s almost insulted that whoever this is truly believes he’ll fall for a pretty girl, in the face of danger… Yet he finds himself beside her in the car anyway.

They sit in silence for some time, the woman still tapping seriously at whatever her monitor says, while John stares at her. He’s practically shaking with energy, annoyance and frustration at Sherlock, and some weird pent up sexual energy as well, which he decides not to look too much into.

“So, er, what’s your name?” he asks, hoping to at least get rid of one of those energies.

“Anthea,” she replies with a smirk, that’s far too mischievous.

“Is that your real name?”

She giggles, and raises an eyebrow. “No,” she answers, moving a hand up to run through her hair, her wrist pointing to John for him to see that her Watch is blank.

Damn. Of course. But had he really wished to make a move on a woman, who for all he knew is planning on killing him?

“May I at least ask what this is about?” he asks, nervousness filling his bones as the car turns into a warehouse district near the Thames, full of industrial shops that had long been abandoned, after the New Revolution.

“I think you know,” the woman says smugly, not looking up from her monitor this time. “Or, who, would be a more correct choice of words.”

Christ. Sherlock. That little bugger. As if he hasn’t caused John enough trouble already. If he’s killed because of that idiotic prick…

The car rolls smoothly to a halt, and Anthea, or whoever she is, slips out of the car. She pauses when she sees John is still sitting very still in his seat, and laughs.

“Oh, Dr. Watson, you can relax,” she says cheerily. “If we wished to kill you, we would’ve done so by now.”

As if that was any consolation, John thinks as he gets out of the car as well. She did have a point, though. There had been no force involved in taking John here, and he can’t see any form of such anywhere nearby. It seems that he has freedom to leave whenever he wishes, but they both know that by now he’s too curious to do so.

“Sir? Dr. Watson here to see you,” Anthea calls out casually as they step into the warehouse.

John freezes when he sees a man, impeccably dressed in a three piece suit, fiddling with a monitor on his wrist.

“Ah, John,” he smiles, glancing up to John. “Right on time. Very important, you know. It speaks to personality greatly.”

John clears his throat. He turns around, but Anthea is nowhere to be seen. “Sorry? Who are you?”

The man waves his hand, as if shooing away the question. “What is your connection to Sherlock Holmes?”

John’s blood immediately runs cold. What had Sherlock done? “He’s my flatmate,” he says carefully, narrowing his eyes. “What else were you expecting?”

The suited man is silent for several moments, looking over John meticulously, as if there’s some puzzle piece missing from his face. “You’ve known him for about a month, yes?” he asks ominously. “By now you must have noticed that this is longer than the others have lasted. Tell me, are you just loyal quickly, or is there something your after from him?”

 _Others?_ “Loyal?” John repeats. “What the hell are you asking? What would I possibly want from him?”

“I'm sure you're well aware of the attention he gets,” the man says, his brow furrowing. “Occasionally he's sought after by various people; they want his intellect, or wish to destroy him.”

"Mhm," John hums, unconvinced. "And where do you fit in this spectrum?"

The man smirks. He looks like he's enjoying this. "I'm merely a concerned party," he says. "I worry about him."

John lets out a long, low breath. “Yeah, I can tell.”

The man twirls his umbrella. "I can assure you, I don't wish to harm Sherlock Holmes, or you,” he states, his voice still a sinister purr. "In fact, I've got a proposition that will be particularly advantageous for you."

"Oh?" John snaps, knowing where this is going.

"I'd like to know what he's getting up to. That information would be very valuable for me. So valuable, that I'd be willing to pay you grand sums for you to provide me with information. Not anything so personal," he adds when he sees John's irate face. "Just his whereabouts. What cases he's working on. Who he sees."

A flash of rage rushes through John. “You want me to spy on my flatmate?” he asks incredulously. “That's ridiculous! I have no idea what your deal is with Sherlock, but he's done nothing that egregious!”

The suited man’s smile grows. “You are loyal, then. Taken to him already, hm?”

John scoffs. “For God’s sake--” before he can finish that thought, his phone buzzes, and instinctively he pulls it out.

_Need you. SH_

_Immediately. SH_

Shit. What’s he gotten into now?

“Am I distracting you from something?”

“Yeah, actually,” John mutters, pocketing his mobile. “Fuck off. You aren’t keeping me here against my will, right? I’ll see myself out.”

The man is still grinning. “But of course. But if you change your mind--”

“I won’t!” John shouts, stalking out of the warehouse with a huff.

 

He hurries back to the flat as fast as he can, sprinting up the stairs once the cab drops him off. He leans against the door heavily, his eyes moving to find Sherlock.

The man in question is seated at the kitchen table, bent over something small.

“Are you alright?” John asks worriedly.

Sherlock glances up. “Hm? Oh, yes, fine,” he says, beckoning John to come closer. “I want your opinion. Would you say this smells like chlorine, or sulfur? My nose is having difficulty detecting smells currently.”

John blinks in confusion. “Pardon? _That’s_ what you called me from across London for? To smell some hideous experiment of yours?!”

Sherlock raises an eyebrow. “Problem?”

“Yeah, I was a bit busy being interrogated by some friend of yours,” He huffs, walking over to the table and glancing down to the petri, where some bubbling black substance is.

Sherlock’s eyebrows fly up his face.

“A friend?” he echoes incredulously.

“Well, someone who seemed to know you, who wanted information on you,” John huffed. “It was rather bizarre. He offered to pay me. I refused.” He adds his last sentence hurriedly as Sherlock looks up at him with a raised eyebrow.

“That’s a shame. We could have used the money,” the detective mutters, his own mobile going off. There are three successive pings before Sherlock groans, snaps off his glove, and grabs the device, a look of distaste appearing on his face as he scans through the screen.

“What is it?” John asks.

“Nothing,” he mutters immediately, setting the mobile on the table and going back to his search. He doesn’t say anything more, and John huffs.

“You really don’t care about this?” he asks.

Sherlock looks up with a surprised expression. “What?”

John groans. “A man dragged me to the old Warehouse district! He forced me in some car and demanded to know about you! That doesn’t give you the least bit of alarm?”

Sherlock blinks, almost looking stunned, if John didn’t know better. “No, that’s the short answer,” he finally sighs. “The long answer is, whatever he’s after, I am too busy to truly care about.” With that he bends back over his petri dish, with a sense of finality.

“Dammit!” the man huffs a few moments later, making John jump. “I’ve completely overlooked the variable of heat! I’m going to need to start all over, it won’t -- no, wait, my bedroom doesn’t get direct sunlight, the windowsill will be cooler.” Before John can wrap his head around what’s happening, Sherlock is suddenly out of the room, disappearing with the petri dish in hand.

He blinks in some confusion, glancing over to the empty table, where Sherlock’s mobile still is. It only takes a few moments for curiosity to settle in, and a few more for it to become unbearable.

He reaches over and presses the ‘on’ button.

The last message received shines as a preview, from a contact named ‘MH’:

_Doesn’t seem like your type, though. Are you intere…_

John taps the message to see the rest of it, but immediately a request for a passcode appears. Shit. He retreats, not about to try to jailbreak Sherlock’s phone. That would not end well, he knows.

Besides, it’s only a moment after stepping back that Sherlock reappears in the room, still muttering about chemicals.

*

The following day, despite John’s gripings, he’s dragged to the morgue to pick up Sherlock’s eyes.

“You said you were going to get them and didn’t, after all, so I think I ought to be able to make a stop, if you’re so determined to take me grocery shopping,” the  dark haired man mutters on the cab ride there.

John doesn’t dignify that with a response, and remains stubbornly silent throughout the drive. It’s only when they step out, and he follows after Sherlock’s long, swift gait, that his mind is forced to relax somewhat. He wishes to remain angry, of course, but there’s something about how determined the other man looks that softens his heart.

But there’s something odd about his appearance, something that’s nagged at John since meeting him, but he can’t think of what on earth it could be… He is exquisite, not quite normal looking in his beauty, but there’s something more.

“I know that you looked at my phone,” Sherlock says suddenly when they stand in the lift, disturbing John from his thoughts.

John jumps, his eyes widening in terror as he glances up to Sherlock. _How…_

“I saw your fingerprint on the screen,” he hums casually. “Next time, wear gloves.”

With that, the lift doors open to the mortuary, and John stands stunned for a moment as Sherlock strides out, confident as ever.

_Sherlock knew his fingerprint?_

He scrambles to catch up with the other man as he opens the door of the lab violently, causing poor Molly Hooper to jump and shout. She’s bent over some toxicology test, in full gear, but now seems flustered.

“Sherlock!” she huffs, catching her breath and adjusting her face mask. “How many times… must I tell you, to stop…” she trails off, as she often does. Poor thing. Even with the mask hiding her lower face, John can tell how much she’s blushing.

It really is awful. He remembers the days of pining after someone, the dismay at discovering that no, his Watch was still counting down… The added humiliation of the doomed crush being someone as rude and aloof as Sherlock Holmes seems too much to bear.

The first time he met her, with some investigation, she practically had tripped over herself just to shake his hand, stammering and blushing as Sherlock said her name. John hadn’t needed to look at her Watch; only someone unbonded would be so giddy around another.

“I’m going to need some blue eyes, Molly,” Sherlock says, ignoring her request. “Green, if there’s nothing else. Preferably nearsighted, but farsighted will also do. Just definitely not--”

Before the detective-scientist can finish his order, the door slams open once more, and Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade barges in.

He freezes when he sees John and Sherlock, and his expression -- previously slightly annoyed -- turns irate.

“Of course you’re here,” he mutters. “I’ve been calling you for weeks and I happen to run into you, _here_.”

Sherlock looks surprised to see how frustrated Lestrade is, and his eyebrows furrow. “Is this about the case you wanted me to look at?” he asks. “It was hardly needing my help, seemed fairly open shut, even for you.”

“ _Even for me_ ,” Lestrade repeats. “I was floundering!”

Sherlock shakes his head, his expression becoming even more confused. “I read in the paper that you had nailed someone for it. You obviously figured it out.”

“Right, eventually. Took me an extra three weeks, you know,” he snaps. John glances between the two, taking a step back as he watches the confrontation.

“And you _still_ haven’t given me your paperwork for the case!” Lestrade continues, turning his annoyance onto Molly, who shrinks back. “My superior’s been breathing down my neck on it for the past two days, I need it _now_.”

“I told you, we’ve been backed up lately,” she squeaks, her eyes moving from side to side, trying to find a way to escape. “I have all the voice notes and handwritten components, but you’re not the only case I have! You’re the one who kept asking me to run different tests, some of them aren’t even back yet! I still don’t think it truly mattered what his DNA makeup was, I don’t understand why you needed me to run it five different ways!” She huffs, her face red by now. “I can’t deal with you _and_ him and his bloody stupid eyeballs!” A small frustrated noise leaves her and she turns on her heel to leave the lab.

“What? Molly, the case won’t be closed unless--!” Lestrade starts, rushing after her, just as Sherlock doubles in the same direction with a shout of, “I _need_ those eyeballs--!”

And then all three of them are gone, leaving John backed up against the wall, feeling confused and slightly shellshocked from that whole exchange.

“What was his problem?” John asks on the cab ride home, holding their groceries in his lap while Sherlock adjusts his coat to hide his jar of eyes better.

“Lestrade’s?” Sherlock asks, rolling his eyes when John nods. “Ah. His wife has been cheating on him again, I believe.”

The statement crashes into John violently, coupled with the casual way Sherlock says it.

“W-what?” he asks.

“Oh, yes, it’s a rather difficult cycle. Her eye wanders, she leaves her happy bed with him, he finds out, she cries, they make up, he thinks they’re doing fine, all while she’s off with someone else, et cetera” Sherlock explains. “Obviously it’s taken a toll on him. He once asked me if his children were really his. I think the woman has driven him insane.”

John stares at him in shock. “Were they?”

Sherlock furrows his brow, as if it’s obvious. “Of course. They both have his eyes, which he already knew.”

John turns from Sherlock, his head rolling. Unfaithful. Infidelity was rare, one of the worst sins to commit against a partner... How could anyone do such a thing? It always seemed like the most dangerous, harmful, and the least rewarding thing one could do.

And, it occurs to him what a terrible place Lestrade is stuck in, between his love and her infidelity. He can’t very well turn in his own Soulmate to his own department, and short of that, his only option is to stay with her, and hope that perhaps she’d see the error of her ways on her own.

The thought of having to do the same himself made his head spin and his stomach queasy.

*

He doesn’t have much time to dwell on this, however, as the following day Sherlock finds a new case to keep them both busy. In fact, the only thing swirling around John’s head for the next four days is the importance of tea cups, blood spatter patterns, and how little sense Sherlock makes when he makes his epiphanies.

But soon it’s all settled, with the suspect apprehended relatively easily (it only took one large chase scene across the vast estate, and the only injury on their end is John’s scraped knees after tackling him), and John finds he’s enjoying this peaceful walk home. It’s just at the peak of afternoon, before the sun will start leaving the sky, and Sherlock is still discussing the case, how Mr. Gretchen had made a fool of himself, for didn’t he know that his sister-in-law would never leave anywhere without her beloved Yorkie?

Admittedly, John doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about, but his rumbling baritone is a nice soundtrack to their walk.

“Oh, for Christsake!” he hears Sherlock snarl, knocking him out of his daze. The detective freezes right outside their door, glaring at something across the street..

John blinks and tries to follow his gaze, and it settles on a familiar sleek, black car, and a _very_ familiar sleek man leaning against it.

“Sherlock, that’s the man who kidnapped me,” he hisses, gripping the man’s sleeve.

“Yes, I know very well,” he practically growls back, marching hurriedly across the street to where the man is. John freezes in horror.

Sherlock snaps something to the man, who in return smiles, and shrugs. John rushes over quickly, not sure if this would also take a violent turn.

“And, another thing--” Sherlock turns to John as he approaches, and huffs. “Stop kidnapping my flatmates!”

The man’s smile widens and he shrugs. “It’s not as if you were going to introduce me, how else would I know whether he’d be good for you?” he asks. “I did promise to protect you, did I not?”

Sherlock stiffens and recoils as John’s brain becomes more muddled and confused.

“I was _six years old, Mycroft_ !” Sherlock snaps angrily. “Are you going to bring that up every _bloody time_ \--”

“He’s your brother?” John blurts before he can stop himself, the thought leaving his mouth as it comes into his head.

Both men stare at him for a moment.

“Why, yes,” Mycroft hums, glancing back to Sherlock. “Can’t you see some family resemblance?” He smiles warmly, while Sherlock scowls. Now that John sees the two of them together, they each have the same mouth, and perhaps if Mycroft were skinnier he’d have the same face shape, and jutting cheekbones.

“So, you… kidnapping me, that was…”

“A bit of improvisation,” Mycroft confesses. “I apologize if it troubled you at all. Two decades of working for the State can certainly hone one’s interrogation skills, and it’s quite easy to see which technique is the most suitable for which people, and I certainly needed to meet you. As I said, I worry about him.”

“He’s been a nuisance since the day I’ve bloody been born,” Sherlock muttered distractedly. “Always meddling in my things--”

“Ah, you both are talking!” A new, female voice chirps, and all three men turn to see Anthea approaching them, a wide smile on her own face and two coffee cups in her hand. “How lovely! We’d been worrying over you, Sherlock, you really ought to answer your phone once in a while.” She hands one coffee cup to Mycroft.

_We?_

“Ah, thank you, darling,” Mycroft says sweetly, taking the cup. As he takes a sip, John gets a glimpse of his Watch, and sees that it’s blank.

_Darling?_

“We really ought to have you two over for dinner,” Anthea coos sweetly to Sherlock, as John’s eyes grow wider, his mouth slowly dropping as he puts this all together.

“Yes, I’ll have my people call your people. Goodbye!” Sherlock says with a tone of finality, grabbing John’s arm and dragging him across the street. The pair still are leaning against the car, watching them leave as Sherlock pulls John inside, and slams the door.

Which is just as well, because just as the door is closed he blurts out:

“ _Anthea is your brother’s Soulmate_?!”

*

A long, mournful chord pulls John from his sleep that night. For a moment, he hasn’t any idea what’s going on, until it changes, forming a slow melody, one that almost aches to listen to.

Sherlock.

He groans, moving onto his back. He’s torn between killing the man, or praising him. It’s beautiful, longing, perfect… But Jesus Christ it’s four in the morning!

After a few more notes, it’s clear that this isn’t stopping anytime soon, and John huffs and gets up, wandering downstairs sleepily.

Sure enough, there’s the madman himself. His back is to John, and he’s facing the window, looking like a statue except for the careful movement of his elbow. All of John’s anger suddenly fades at the sight.

“Thinking about something?” John asks, surprised at how raspy his voice sounds.

The music stops, and Sherlock turns. His face is pensieve, proving John’s hypothesis, but he shakes his head.

“Not really.” The voice is soft, more so than John has ever heard. In the moonlight, Sherlock’s face is even more statuesque and mythical, shadows curl up under his nose and slide along his cheekbone. The sight takes him aback, just for a moment. Something churns in his stomach, and he can feel every drop of blood in his veins.

He looks so odd. He’s like a spectre, something that doesn’t belong in this world, but dammit if John can’t see why. His entire body looks sculpted, it _should_ be perfect, but something’s off, almost as if the man is missing a nose…

There’s that churning feeling again. It’s like the feeling he would get when that blonde nurse would make eye contact with him during hospital rounds all those years ago, the one who was _so_ beautiful that it was painful.

“Then why the playing?” He found his own voice was soft too, as if speaking louder would break something.

Sherlock shrugs. “I’m not sure,” he murmurs, and scratches the back of his head with his bow as a small smile comes on his face.

Something rushes through John, and he can’t be here anymore. There’s something in the air, this room is dangerous, he cannot be here any longer because if he stays something might happen.

He finds himself staring at his Watch as he retreats, as if it will give him some answer. 77d12h53m.

What did he expect it to say?

*

It’s a few days later that he realizes what’s odd about Sherlock’s appearance. He’s so used to seeing it, that it’s completely unexpected to see it not there.

It’s in the morning; John has just gotten up, walked downstairs to make himself some coffee, when he sees Sherlock sprawled in his chair, asleep with a book in his lap. After a few moments the detective yawns and stretches, his arms outstretched to the sides. For once his bare right wrist is in plain view. Then it hits John.

“You don’t have a Watch,” he blurts. Sherlock blinks at him, still in mid-yawn.

“No… I don’t,” he agrees, rubbing at his eyes now.

“Why?”

Sherlock gives him a look, that even in his half-awake state looks judging and annoyed. “They removed it,” he says, as if it’s obvious.

John laughs for a moment, until he realises Sherlock is serious. Then a flutter of worry goes through him. Only violent criminals had their Watches removed. “... Why?” he asks again.

“Anti-social tendencies,” Sherlock says, just as casually, and smiles at John’s look of shock. “Don’t flatter me, John. You’ve seen it more than others. At the age of seven they deemed I would be an insufficient mate, and removed it.” He gets up and walks into the kitchen, seeming completely nonplussed by this conversation.

That doesn’t make sense. It can’t make sense. ‘Anti-social tendencies.’ Sure, Sherlock is awkward, but certainly that did not make him incapable of love, did it? If anything, John has thought that Sherlock deserves love and affection more than anyone. He’d be a pill, but his Soulmate would still love him, wouldn’t she?

And he’d been so young… Having everything taken away from you at only seven years old.

And, why the hell was Sherlock’s Watch taken away for being awkward, while Harry’s and Greg’s Soulmates got to keep theirs? They were destructive, hurting everything in their path… Surely Sherlock in love was no worse than them.

“What about your soulmate?” John asks.

“She probably was reassigned to a more appropriate partner.” _Reassigned?!_

“But she’s your soulmate!”

Sherlock gives him another judging look, this one even worse than the first. There’s a long pause, where at first Sherlock smiles and laughs, but all of that falls away when he sees John’s somber look.

“... You still believe that nonsense, don’t you?” he says in shock.

“Nonsense?” John shakes his head. “It’s not nonsense. How could it be nonsense?”

Sherlock laughs again, this time without humor. “Oh, really, John. How the hell can the government track who your soulmate is?”

John frowns, and shakes his head again, trying to ignore the creeping feeling in him. “Well, there’s a process… They study you, look to see who the most compatible--”

Sherlock gives him such a pitying look that John has to look away.  He’s wrong. He has to be.

“I didn’t take you to be a Conspirator,” he snaps defensively, as it’s the only thing he can think of to say. A conspirator, a traitor to the State, was someone who believed the State was wrong, that Freedom was lost in the State bringing Happiness. There were violent organizations, terrorist groups that attacked many State officials, bombed office buildings, even at times killed families.

“Resorting to name-calling?” Sherlock asks. “Very mature of you, John. But no, I’m not a Conspirator. I’m merely someone who is going to die alone, who has thought about this for a long time.” Despite the smirk growing on the detective’s face, John can hear a sharpness to his tone, a small hurt part of him coming out.

He bows his head and retreats to the kitchen. Of course Sherlock would be angry, would rationalize this. He was doomed to die alone, as he said, he was never given a chance. It would only be natural to be bitter, to decide that the whole thing was bunk to begin with. How else could one live?

He looks back at Sherlock, who is still in his chair, and tries not to think of the life this man must have lived, nor that sinking feeling rising up in him as once more Harry’s relationship, Greg’s lack of one, and now this knowledge comes back to him.

_How could they let three people be so miserable?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait for this one... The semester at school was pretty busy for me. Hopefully it's not too cringeworthy. I'm also hoping that I will be able to post a bit more regularly, but even if I can't, I promise I won't forget this project!  
> Comments are as always, welcome, etc. etc.


	4. 70d12h32m

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one turned out to be much longer than I planned, and of course much of the writing of it happened during various changes in my life -- moving across the world, settling into new relationships, having deadlines for irl writing, etc. So! I apologize for the delay, and any obvious errors that appear.

_John slips into the house from the back door, his hair a mess and a few hickeys hiding under his shirt collar. Even in his oxytocin high, he’s careful to lock the door and take off his shoes before tiptoeing into the hallway. It’s late, after all, and his father won’t be happy if he wakes up to John sneaking in._

_His mind is elsewhere, though, still frustrated by the fact that Patricia Gold would only let him into her shirt, and nothing else._

_How is that fair? He thinks to himself as he turns the knob to his room despondently, and opens the door, before realizing that it isn’t empty like he thought._

_The first thing he sees is Harry jerking away, in her bra, and as his wide eyes move, they settle on a thin girl with shoulder-length dark hair, who_ isn’t _wearing a bra._

_It takes him a moment in his shock to recognize her as Clara, a girl in his literature class who sometimes lets him cheat off her. They all are frozen, staring at one another awkwardly, especially Clara, whose arms are crossed against her small chest, and looks absolutely humiliated._

_His eyes slowly move off of her, and settle onto Harry, who looks at him with pleading, desperate eyes._

_“Don’t tell Dad,” she begs._

 

* * *

 

“You didn’t serve either, did you?” John asks somewhat abruptly over dinner. Sherlock looks at him in surprise. He nods, although his eyes squint, as if he’s not sure if the question is a trap.

“I was called, they did their examination, took one look at my wrist, and dismissed me,” he explains. “I’m often surprised that no one else notices that bit, I don’t have any sort of military personality that most men do.”

“Personality?” John asks.

“Well, the tells. Most men walk in stride with one another, even years after their service they retain their professional gait. For example, whenever you and Lestrade walk together you have the precise same steps, and your arms swing in uniform. You also square your shoulders more than I do.”

John blinks in surprise, realizing as Sherlock mentioned it that his shoulders were indeed square and pressed back at that moment. He hardly had the time to correct it before the other begins speaking again.

“I always found it rather odd, that I was disqualified from service for not having a Soulmate, but who would be better to die in a war than someone who didn’t have a Soulmate to lose?”

John looks at him, that sadness he felt that morning coming back to him. Sherlock scoffs when he catches the sight of it.

“Oh, come off it, John,” he sighs. “I hate pity as much as you do. I’ve had years to accept this, I’m not broken up about it.”

“Right, I know,” John mumbles softly. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to assume. It’s mostly… Well, I’ve spent probably a good literal half of my life staring at my wrist, looking forward to meeting her, I can’t imagine how life would have been otherwise. How you’d spend your time.”

A small smirk touches Sherlock’s lips, to John’s surprise. “I find things to do,” he says. “I’d say it frees up quite a lot of space in my life.”

John blinks. “What do you mean?”

“Well…” Sherlock purses his lips, regarding his plate for a moment. “For starters, I don’t spend so much time feeling guilty when I have affairs, like you do.”

John can feel the blood rush into his cheeks, even though what Sherlock said is fairly benign. It’s the first time he’s mentioned sexuality concerning him at all, and John suddenly feels embarrassed about how he’s thought about this too much.

Sherlock raises an eyebrow, and that dastardly smirk grows. “What?” he asks with a low chuckle. “Did you think I was a virgin?”

“Well, ah…” John clears his throat. “I mean, before this morning, I had come to the conclusion that you were Pure.” Someone who saved their body for their Soulmate, and never even kissed until they met that person.

Sherlock’s eyes widen, and his mouth drops open for a single moment to form a comical grin, before he breaks down into the most sincere laugh John has ever heard him utter.

 *

Although Sherlock tells him not to, this whole business still bothers John well into the night, as he stares at his darkened numbers. 76d21h48m.

He slowly begins to rationalize this. Perhaps Sherlock’s Soulmate had been just as odd as he was, but perhaps that had come with some other life-threatening disorder, and she had died. Perhaps that was part of the reason why the Watch was removed.

Although John has to admit that it is an odd way of saving grief on the State’s part, to tell Sherlock and his family that it was a character flaw on Sherlock’s end.

But as awful as this explanation is, maybe he just has to accept once that the system isn’t perfect, and that Sherlock was on the losing end of the stick with it.

 *

“A museum thief who doesn’t trip any alarms, and doesn’t show up on any security cameras,” Sherlock hums, the look on his face akin to a cat that’s caught sight of a mouse.

“Yes, that’s what I just said,” Greg says, giving an annoyed look to John as he presses the files closer to Sherlock again. John can only shrug and nod in sympathy. “There’s no footage of him stealing the pieces, but there’s a camera at the entrance to every room, and that’s clean.”

“Him? Lestrade, how old-fashioned of you,” Sherlock tuts, finally taking the manila folder from the detective-inspector.

The gray haired man rolls his eyes, stepping back to join John on the sidelines of Sherlock’s show.

“I think the only thing more infuriating than him moping about is him when he’s _happy_ ,” he mutters.

John sighs. “He’s going to be even worse after you leave, too.”

The two men had become somewhat close over the past few weeks, mostly over how frustrating Sherlock was. They’d met up over drinks, and had found that they rather enjoyed each other’s company. Greg was also a veteran, having served in the South Pacific front, and they both had had a wild youth.

John liked him. He didn’t bring up Soulmates, or that he knew about Lestrade’s troubles. That would be a transgression, as he knew he wasn’t supposed to know such things.

Sherlock reads the report with great interest, a grin appearing on his face. Both John and Greg share a knowing glance, recognizing that look as an epiphany for the detective.

“Well?” Greg asks expectantly.

Sherlock looks up in surprised, as if he wasn’t expecting the two of them to still be there. “Well, I can hardly surmise everything by just looking at a report now, can I?” he asks. “I’ll need to see the crime scenes.”

“Yes, but you’ll take the case?” Greg prompts.

Sherlock scowls, and drops the file on the floor. “My interest has been piqued, yes,” he concedes. “Can you take me now?”

Greg rolls his eyes, but completes the motion with a nod, and they’re off.

 *

The Museum of Antique Times is closed, and with the darkened windows the building looks like a looming monster. The tall cement building has always looked foreboding to John, and now that the enormous doors are shut, he feels as if walking inside would be trespassing.

But one of them opens with a shaking creak, and they’re sucked into the old institution. John follows after Sherlock and the inspectors, feeling useless as they’re ushered into the Expressionist wing. There’s no body, no use for a medical doctor here, but Sherlock had insisted.

Instead, there’s a large expanse of emptiness against one of the walls, where the most recent piece of art was taken. John hangs back as Sherlock starts to examine the wall, appreciating for a moment whatever the criminal had to go through. The piece had to be fairly large, it must have been inordinately difficult to get out of the museum, in a simply logistical sense.

John wanders around the rest of the exhibit, taking advantage of the emptiness. He stopped at a painting across from the missing one, a combination of lines and colors. It looks abstract, but as John steps closer he can see the faint outline of a deer, lying in the technicolor grass.

“John!” Sherlock calls, causing John to jump out of his introspective gaze.

“Yes?” John hurries over to the blank space in the wall beside Sherlock once more.

To his surprise, Sherlock leans in and whispers in his ear. “Are covert operations a part of basic training in the military? Or is it only taught during deployment?”

John furrows his brow, not sure why Sherlock is asking this in such a small voice. He clears throat, and responds in a whisper as well. “I only learned it once I was in Afghanistan. On the home front there’s not as much of a need for covertness. Why?”

“As we discussed before, I did not serve, making that one weakness in my intellect. Whether or not this is a common tactic taught to all men, or just those shipped off, does manage to narrow things down a bit in terms of suspect.” With that, Sherlock turns to Lestrade and the other constables, and claps his hand together.

“By the way, Lestrade, when you, or any of the other incredibly qualified policemen at the Yard came in here to investigate, did you bother to look up?”

At that cue, John tilted his head up to look at the ceiling.

There are _footprints_ running along the thick pipeline of lights. The pipe and wires look fraught and pulled as well.

“Someone scaled the ceiling?” Greg asks in shock, echoing John’s thoughts.

“It does appear that way, doesn’t it?” Sherlock asks, his sarcastic tone slipping in.

“But how? How, and how did that not show up on the cameras?!”

“The cameras don’t look at the ceiling either,” Sherlock says. “John, is there a special assignment in the army for covert operations? Where sneaking in and out of dangerous locations would be the entire job description?”

“Er, of course,” John nods, not used to all eyes being on him. “They usually deal with sensitive hostage situations, or if there’s information we would need for espionage, they’d go into enemy headquarters and try to steal any files or artifacts.”

Greg nods slowly, lifting his arm to look at his monitor. “So we need to look for any convicts with a background in that section of the army.”

Sherlock scoffs so loudly, for a moment John thinks that he’s sneezed. Greg looks back to the detective with some confusion.

“Are you serious?” Sherlock laughs. “This person’s entire job description was to steal things without anyone noticing. Do you truly believe that they would have a record?”

Greg freezes, his wrist still halfway to his face. “How else are we supposed to catch up to him?”

“This was his third theft,” Sherlock hums, his proud smirk growing. “He’s not going to stop, which is his biggest weakness here.”

“But we don’t know when or where this next heist is going to be!”

“The where is simple to answer,” Sherlock says, striding forward. “All of the pieces taken are from this era. Different forms of art, and schools, but they’re all from mid-century, Antiques before the new Revolution. Not very many museums house that epoch of art, do they?”

Greg frowns, pausing as he goes over something in his head. “Well, what’s the next one going to be?”

“Precisely,” Sherlock nods. “But there are some lesser known galleries. Even less security on those, I’m rather surprised those weren’t hit up first. Given the criminal’s habits, I can give you the location he’ll be in next within the night.”

“And when?” one of the other inspector’s snaps.

Sherlock’s smile slips, just the slightest bit. “I can figure that out as well,” he says, raising a testy eyebrow. “I’ll contact you when I have all of that, and I assume this is all you need me for?” He starts heading towards the exit, and John follows like the obedient puppy he is.

“And how are you planning on finding all this out?” Greg calls out after them.

“You needn’t worry about it!” Sherlock shouts back, smirking at John as they stride out of the museum.

*

Sherlock’s plan, as it turns out, is to browse illegal marketing sites. He has that maniacal, concentrated look about him when John comes in with tea, and he sucks in a breath.

“Whoa whoa, what are you doing?” he asks, setting down Sherlock’s cup and staring in shock at the blue screen on Sherlock’s tablet. He recognizes the coding on screen as a maneuver to bypass firewalls.

“I’m finding our criminal, isn’t it obvious?”

“By doing what?! Breaking into some child porn site?!”

Sherlock huffs, giving John another _you really are stupid_ look. “Not a child porn site,” he says matter-of-factly. “An art dealing site.”

“What, are you going to buy the works that he stole?” John asks, still incredulous. “What if the State notices your activity! This could get you thrown in prison for decades!”

“Oh, calm down, John. No one’s going to notice, and I’m not buying anything. The pieces he stole have already been bought. I need to get an idea of the supply and demand for these markets, how often one would need to steal if they were trying to make a living off of it.”

“How do you even know to access these sites?” John demands.

Sherlock huffs. “Well, let’s see, in university I dealt contraception, and for a while I was addicted to cocaine. It was rather vital for me to get on these websites.”

The casual tone in Sherlock’s voice throws John off, and he blinks in shock. “You what?”

But Sherlock ignores him, and has already gotten onto a webpage. It still looks mostly like code, and has little formatting, but while John squints in confusion, Sherlock appears to completely understand it.

“Hm.” Sherlock purses his lips. “He’s far more active than I thought… This isn’t just income for him, it’s a high. And given how this is starting to break in the press, I’d say the next heist will be in less than three days.”

*

Sure enough, after a night of more sleuthing (which really consisted of Sherlock tracking whoever this was, and John sitting beside him with a cup of tea, endlessly fascinated with the process), Sherlock determined that there would be a break in at the Historical Museum of Art, which only had a few works from the era this criminal was obsessed with, but was more high profile, something that was alluring for an ambitious thief.

In preparation for this, Lestrade has himself and a few men posted inside the museum of the night in question, and after much arguing and pouting, Sherlock manages to convince him to allow the two of them in too.

The museum looks downright haunted at night. It’s a full moon, and the silver lighting shines into the darkened hallways. Long, sinister shadows cut across every corner.

It makes John shiver, and step closer to Sherlock, as if he will protect him from any boogeymen that may show up.

Sherlock appears to be more well adjusted, as he always does. He walks casually along the wings of the museums, glancing about as if looking for a taxi. John follows after him, and doesn’t even notice how far they’ve wandered until they’re deep within a gallery. The police are posted all near the entrances, and he and Sherlock are at least a floor up, far into an exhibit.

“What are we doing here?” John hisses. Sherlock immediately puts a finger to his lips, and his eyes flicker about the place before answering.

“He’s going to get past Lestrade and his men. It’s merely a fact,” he murmurs into John’s ear, causing shivers down his spine. “We’re going to stop him here.”

John raises an eyebrow, and is about to ask why Sherlock thinks that he alone has the skillset to capture a man whose entire job description is evasion, but then he catches sight of something in the corner of his eye.

“Sherlock!” he shouts, just as the figure pulls out a weapon of his own. Despite the two of them being evenly matched, John has the advantage with his gun already drawn, and he shoots quickly.

He misses, and the figure dashes into the shadows.

“Dammit,” John seethes, rushing up the stairs after him. Sherlock is close on his tail.

They rush into the darkened exhibit, and John’s eyes dash to every corner of the room. No one. Shit. Nothing on the ceiling either.

The sound of a gunshot unbridled by a silencer bursts through the entire room, and John hardly has the time to react before Sherlock grips his arm, and they change directions, now becoming the chased.

Another shot rings out, and this one John swears he can hear fly by his head. He tries to turn and take aim, but he doesn’t have a shot, not without putting multiple priceless paintings at risk.

Sherlock still has an ironclad grip on his arm, and pulls him into another exhibit, shouts and gunfire still roaring behind them. He yanks John into the wall closest to the doorway, and both men collapse against the wall, panting for breath.

“I’m going to fucking kill you,” John mutters, looking up at Sherlock. “Putting our lives at risk over art?”

Sherlock is grinning cheek to cheek, and chuckles. The two men stare at each other for a long second, and John remembers how beautiful and alluring Sherlock is, how he looks like an angel...

The thought doesn’t even occur to kiss him, until their lips are suddenly together, and John pulls him as close as he possibly can.

They’re out of breath, and John’s lips are cracked and aching, but somehow it manages to work. John bites, sucks, digs his nails into Sherlock’s shoulders, doing everything he can to take as much as he can of the detective, and the other does the same, keeping John’s head in place as he explores the doctor’s mouth with his tongue.

Somewhere in the recesses of John’s mind, he hears the entrance doors being thrown open and more shouts, gunfire, but they take a backseat to Sherlock’s talented mouth.

“John! Sherlock!” He hears Greg shout, and that’s when Sherlock pulls away. The dark haired detective stares at John, looking through his eyes into his soul.

“We’re here!” he shouts, not taking his eyes off of John for a moment.

And then it begins to sink in.

What have they done?

 

John hardly listens as Lestrade explains what has occurred, once they’re back on the ground floor. Something about hearing gunshots, getting there in the nick of time, the suspect was being taken to St. Bart’s, hopefully he’d remain in stable condition. Sherlock asks some questions, and Greg answers them hurriedly.

“Now go on, get out of here before one of my superiors sees you,” he finally says, making a sweeping motion with his hand.

Sherlock looks excited to leave as well, as he’s at the door in almost three strides. John follows as usual, but he’s a step or two more behind than he would be usually. It’s as if there’s some forcefield around Sherlock, one that if John steps into, he’ll have to think of what they’d just done, and how the other’s lips had felt against his own, how he had tasted.

Sherlock notices John’s hesitation, of course he does. The moment they step into the cold night air, the detective turn to him with a smile, but it disappears within a blink of an eye.

They’re silent on the cab ride. John is pressed as far as he can against the door, but he can still feel Sherlock’s warmth, hear his breath.

The cab deposits them, and Sherlock holds out a bill to the driver before John can get to it. He slips out of the car as the other finishes the payment. Suddenly the London street is too small, or too big for him.

He heads inside. He’s halfway up the stairs when he hears the front door open and shut again. Dammit. He’d been hoping that he could avoid the other.

Still, he manages to get inside the flat. Sherlock arrives moments later, but slows at the doorway. For once he’s decided to respect other’s feelings, apparently.

“John,” he says as John hurriedly starts on the stairs up to his room. John stops, and looks down.

He can’t place the expression on Sherlock’s face, it’s not one he’s ever seen before. If he didn’t know better, he’d say the detective looked upset.

“That was your first time with a man,” the detective says. It’s not a question, but there is hint of realization in the other’s voice.

Hearing it put into words makes John’s stomach coil, and he tries not to gag right there.

“I’m going to bed, Sherlock,” he replies, his voice hardly a whisper, and he continues on the stair.

Sherlock doesn’t bother him again.

Throughout the entire night, John stares at his watch. 70d12h32m. It could just be him, but he could swear the numbers shine just the slightest bit more tonight. But the Watches run on the iron in blood, and his heart has been pounding out of his chest for hours. He could just imagine the quick surging pulse powering the gears, sending it into overdrive.

He doesn’t sleep. From the looks of Sherlock at the kitchen table the following morning, neither has he.

But John can’t do it. He can’t face Sherlock, not now. Just as the other man looks up from his coffee, John darts for the door, not even bothering to close it as he bolts down the stairs and out of the flat.

He buys coffee and a scone. He goes to work. He invites a coworker out to dinner. By the time he returns to the flat, it’s incredibly late, and he knows that Sherlock is catching up on all the sleep he missed during his case.

It goes on like this for two days, with John leaving and returning only when he knows Sherlock will be gone. John is perfectly aware of how much of a coward he’s being, but he can’t bear to face it. Whenever he does, he’s forced to deal with not revulsion, but tenderness, and that warmth that stirs in his stomach. He can’t continue with that in his mind.

He tells his coworkers at the clinic to let him know if they learn of any cheap flats coming up, brushing off their questions.

 

It’s well into thursday night when he tiptoes up the stairs, and peeks inside. The flat is dark. He squints, and notices that Sherlock’s coat and scarf aren’t on the rack, meaning that the detective is out. His deductive skills are getting better.

With confidence in this fact, John turns on the light for the front room, dimly lighting the foyer.

A dark blur rushes towards him, and just as John starts to react, Sherlock has him pinned to the wall, with his hands uselessly in a tight grip by the detective.

He looks furious. No, _upset_. His breathing his heavy, his eyes alternate between wide and narrowed a few times every second, and his nose twitches.

“We’re talking about this!” the detective snaps, and for the first time, john feels frightened of him.

He forces himself to look into Sherlock’s eyes, which are so full of hurt and anger that he can’t stand it. “What?”

Sherlock lets out a harsh scoff, the ones he only does when someone does something he deems enormously stupid.

“I wouldn’t care if you didn’t want to continue this,” he says, his voice still cold as ice. “If you didn’t feel attracted to me, if you even wished to let this change our relationship and cohabit here awkwardly. But that isn’t the issue here! You _are_ attracted to me, and you want this! I’ve seen it, don’t bother denying it. I was even content to never let it come to fruition, if you preferred to remain in denial, but this is--” his nostrils flare. “I will not allow you to destroy this relationship because of your insecurities!”

John stares at him with wide eyes, completely terrified, until he sees what seems like a mirror in Sherlock’s face.

He’s frightened too.

“Sherlock, I--I can’t!” he can barely get the words out. “It’s illegal--”

“So are the things you do with your supervisor at work,” Sherlock growls.

“It’s different! This is wrong, unnatural--”

Sherlock lets go of him at that, stepping back with a harsh laugh. “Why?” he snarls. “What about it do you think is so against nature?”

“Men aren’t supposed to be together, it’s wrong, it’s not how nature is supposed to work!” John insists. “How could it be normal?!”

A smirk comes onto Sherlock’s face, making him look positively demented. “Do you believe that I’m a deviant?” he just about purrs.

“No, you’re just confused, frightened, like me--”

“John.” Sherlock shakes his head. “I’ve been sleeping with men since I was fifteen. I’m not confused at all. I thought you would have figured that out by now.”

John’s entire body goes cold.

“Again… Do you think I’m a deviant?” Sherlock repeats.

He’s waiting for an answer, John can see it in his eyes. “I… Don’t know…” he’s forced to confess.

Sherlock takes a step towards him again, staring down at John. “Do you think you’re a deviant?” he asks.

John squeezes his eyes shut, but he’s forced to open them when Sherlock touches his chin, and draws his chin up.

“If I could guarantee that no one would ever discover this… If there were no consequences, no guilt… Would you continue this?”

Every part of John wants to say no. It’s wrong, all of this is so dangerous and wrong, but the way Sherlock’s blue eyes are staring at him so earnestly make his heart melt. “Yes,” he whispers.

With that, Sherlock kisses him again.

 

Kissing a man is strange. The kiss itself remains the same, and the way Sherlock grazes his lips with his tongue, and sucks on his skin makes John become dizzy, but the rest is where it gets tricky. They’re pressed incredibly close together, and John can feel the outline of Sherlock’s body, can feel the dearth of all the curves and softness of a woman.

On top of that, Sherlock makes it known that he’s a man. He takes charge, touching John with no hesitation, groping him and pulling him along.

But it’s good. It’s _so_ good, and John can’t keep up enough. They’re pressed up against the door, wrapped around one another, and John is harder than he’s ever been in his life. Sherlock’s body feels so good, and each small movement with his hips makes a whining sound escape John’s throat.

Sherlock takes his hands, tugs him along, with a ravenous look in his eyes. He walks them to his bedroom, and once again begins to kiss John, biting at his lip and purring every few moments.

It’s only when John is lying on his back, with Sherlock over him, that he begins to feel the panic again.

“Sher--”

“Shh,” Sherlock whispers, kissing John softly. His hands slide along the soldier’s hips. “I’ve got you. You don’t need to do anything.”

The soft tone of voice somehow helps, and John relaxes into the kissing once more as Sherlock undoes his trouser buttons, and lets his hand slip in.

John shudders and gasps, each touch sending firecrackers under his skin. Sherlock is good at this, he thinks in the back of his mind as the detective starts to stroke him off. But that makes sense, given that they have the same anatomy, and Sherlock has done this to himself for years.

Soon even those thoughts are lost, and John comes far too soon with a small groan.

Sherlock doesn’t look as if he minds, though, as he kisses John tenderly for a moment, before shifting.

He keeps kissing John as he undoes his own belt and trousers. John can feel Sherlock’s fist graze across his stomach and the small jump of his hips, starting to pump and get himself off. The detective pulls away and buries his face in John’s neck, gasping and grunting softly.

John hasn’t any idea what he’s supposed to do in this circumstance, and decides on kissing Sherlock’s ear and jaw, to remind him that he’s there, and that he’s not leaving.

Within a few minutes Sherlock let’s out a choked breath, and John can feel warmth pool on his stomach as Sherlock settles against him.

There’s heavy breathing, and John can feel both of their hearts pounding. This is all so foreign to him, he feels as though he’s lying on a cloud, or that he’s in a dream.

Sherlock lifts his head up and kisses John on the cheek. “Are you alright?” he asks.

John glances at him, and nods slowly.

“Yeah.”


	5. 65d21h33m

_It has to be five in the morning. John rubs at his eyes and slaps his cheeks, waiting for his third coffee to kick in. He has another ten hours to go before his shift is over at the hospital, and tomorrow he has another hospital exam, one he can’t afford not to pass._

_In the call room, lights flash, signalling an emergency down at the ambulance dock. He downs the rest of his coffee and rushes down with the rest of his doctors-in-training._

_“Adult male, mid-fifties, struck by a drunk driver,” someone tells them as they put on their scrubs. “He lost a lot of blood, his legs were crushed and it took two hours to get him out of his car--”_

_Someone taps his shoulder, and John turns to see the hospital supervisor, his face pale._

_“Dr. Watson, please come with me,” he says, in the serious tone he always has. John can’t help but feel enraged._

_“Sir, I have to tend to--”_

_“Dr. Watson, you really ought to come with me,” he says again, gripping John’s shoulder._

_The stretcher is rushed by, and John only catches a glimpse of the man, his useless bloody legs, and his broken face, that has just enough recognition for him to realise --_

_“Dad?”_

 

* * *

 

John awakens to the feel of sun against his skin. The warmth on his arm makes him stir, and he stretches under the covers. His hands run along new skin, and on instinct he leans into the body beside him, nuzzling his nose into their back and wrapping an arm around their waist.

As he does so, he realises that the body beside him is masculine. _Oh God_. That’s right. He’d slept with Sherlock.

The other man stirs as well, and yawns, moving onto his back. He blinks sleepily over at John, and despite himself, the doctor can’t help but think of how adorable the man looks, with his tussled hair and barely open eyes.

“Good morning,” the other man says, yawning and turning onto his side. “Did you sleep well?”

“Yeah,” John says softly, surprised to say it, but it’s true. “Better than I have in a while.” Since he’d come home from Afghanistan.

Sherlock only hums, his eyes slipping shut. He doesn’t bring up last night, or the words they exchanged. Perhaps his genius mind has already moved past it, figuring that they’ve resolved the majority of the problem, or maybe, he doesn’t care much if John is still dealing with his mind, because he knows the doctor will not leave.

And of course, as usual, Sherlock is right on that count. John isn’t leaving.

Just as he reaches his hand out, thinking of touching Sherlock in some way, perhaps to just comb through his hair, the mobile of the other starts ringing loudly, and Sherlock is suddenly sitting up straight.

“Lestrade,” he answers. He glances over to John, but soon he’s standing, still completely naked, and walks towards the door. “You aren’t serious.”

And, without even a nod to John, the other is gone from the room. And, with Sherlock gone, John has no lightning rod to let his thoughts stick to, and they go wild.

 _What the hell did they do?!_ Before Sherlock, John has never even considered doing such a thing with a man, yet they did it, and… It felt just as natural as anything.

 _I’ve been sleeping with men since I was fifteen._ That’s what Sherlock had said. The thought now still makes John shiver. Before last week, the image of a Homosexual was planted firmly in his brain, of a carnivorous, hideous person. Mistakes were made, people could be confused, but… Sleeping with men for almost half one’s life, that was deliberate.

He tried to imagine the life Sherlock must have led. The guilt and anger, knowing how bad it was yet somehow being drawn to that sort of life.

But, then again, perhaps Sherlock felt no guilt. He had no Soulmate, no poor woman he was letting down. Why not commit a sin, if nothing is keeping you from doing so? Perhaps he was trying to punish the very government that had denied him a chance at happiness, by becoming as corrupt as possible for them.

His eyes fall down to his own Watch, and guilt floods his body. Sherlock doesn’t need to worry about this, but he certainly does.

65d21h33m. What was it yesterday? Has it gone up or down? Does it matter? It isn’t as if this act will have affected this.

Before his mind can get further stuck in this, Sherlock comes back through the door.

“Lestrade wants paperwork done,” he sighs in annoyance. “Our thief has survived, fortunately, but the SWAT team has made quite a mess of the galleries. The museum is not happy, and wants some proof that this was the only way to catch the criminal.” He huffs, and flops down on the bed beside John once more. “Which will be difficult, because it wasn’t.”

John’s eyes sweep over Sherlock’s body, those intricate curves and alabaster skin. Desire begins to fill him again, which brings with it terror.

 _No one will find out_. That’s what Sherlock said, right? He’s done this for more than a decade, perhaps he knows.

Sherlock peeks up at him from the pillow, lifting his head just slightly. He’s quiet as his eyes dart this way and that, and John wants to squirm, avoid that scrutiny he knows Sherlock is putting him through.

“Do you want me to leave?” the detective asks. “I imagine you’d like time to collect yourself. I’ll need to go to the station anyway.”

“Er… No, it’s -- it’s your room anyway. I’ll go into my own room. But, um, yeah, you’re right, maybe, if you could give me a bit of space…” His voice is getting quieter, something that John despised. “Check back when you return?”

Sherlock smiles, a genuine artifact that makes John’s heart flutter. “Of course.”

And, in a case of rare consideration, Sherlock even turns his head away as John slips out of bed, allowing the doctor some privacy as he awkwardly slips out of the room naked.

John puts on some pants once he’s back in his room, and curls up into his bed tightly. His mind is still swirling, but somehow he falls back asleep regardless.

When he wakes up again an hour or so later, Sherlock and his act no longer seems so frightening. Being alone for a bit did help, it seems.

With a clearer head, John takes the time to go downstairs to make himself lunch, and peruse on this further.

Sherlock and he had sex. That was okay. But he couldn’t do it again. It was nice, but it couldn’t be done again. At least not for a while. Not until John could wrap his head around all of this, and feel more in control.

 

Or, that was the plan, until John finds himself on the couch with the detective that evening, naked once more. Sherlock is over him, pumping them both in his hand. It’s far too much, and John can hardly think straight, with the sweat, Sherlock’s soft moans, the way his hips feel when they jut against his, the way his shoulders feel when John digs his nails into him --

“Sherlock…” he gasps desperately, squirming. “Sh-Sherlock…”

Sherlock groans, jerking his head up to look at John. His face is gleaming with sweat, and he looks like an animal. “Hm?” he groans. His hand starts to move quicker.

John gasps again, and he struggles to remember what he was going to say. “C-can we talk?” he manages, all the while pulling Sherlock closer to him.

Sherlock lets out a breathless laugh, and leans in to bite John’s ear. “In five minutes?” he suggests.

 _I don’t think I’ll need that long,_ John thinks as he whimpers and squirms once more, but nods regardless.

But this time it’s Sherlock’s turn to come first, and the way he silently gasps, and his muscles freeze under John’s fingers is enough for him to fall apart once more himself.

They stay like that for several moments, the both of them clinging to each other. Dizziness falls over John, and he leans them both back to lie down across the length of the couch, his arms still around Sherlock.

He gazes at the detective, admiring his chest, and the way it caves in with each desperate breath.

His eyes wander back up, and catch Sherlock’s piercing blue ones, watching him with a smirk.

“What did you want to talk about so urgently?” he asks, kissing John sweetly on the lips, as if they were new Soulmates, and they weren’t so degraded like they were now.

John shuts his eyes. “I’m having trouble getting used to this,” he mutters softly.

This doesn’t stop Sherlock’s kissing. “Ah,” comes the answer. “Do you want me to leave?”

“No!” _not at all._ “But I think it might be… beneficiary if maybe we took this a bit slower, for the time being?” He opens his eyes again, but immediately feels like he must shy away from Sherlock’s soft, tender gaze.

“Of course,” he murmurs, cupping John’s face. “We’ll give it a rest for a few days.”

John stares at him, unable to believe it for a moment. No sarcasm, no rude scoff or eye roll… Did Sherlock actually understand him here?

A grateful sigh escapes him, and he pulls Sherlock into a kiss. The other man pauses, longer than what John would have expected, but then a hum emits from his throat, and he wraps his arms tightly around John’s back and pulls him closer.

 

* * *

 

But John still can’t help being terrified. The first few sirens that blare past Baker Street make him jump, and his dream that night (in his own bed) is of Lestrade finding them, naked, curled up like they were on the couch, and throwing them in jail, where Moriarty, the man from the government, approaches them slowly.

He wakes up in a cold sweat, like his dreams of Afghanistan.

When he pads down to the kitchen that morning, still slightly shaky from his restless dreams, he spots Sherlock at the stove.

“... Morning,” he calls to the detective in some surprise.

Sherlock turns to him with a smile. “Good morning, John,” he chirps (a bizarre tone of voice on him). “I thought I’d make you breakfast.”

John stares at him. Simultaneously, he feels a suspicion nagging at the corner of his mind, but also a warm, lighthearted tingling. _No one has made me breakfast before_.

“Why?” he can’t help but ask.

Sherlock smiles, leaning against the counter. “I want to make you comfortable,” he explains.

“You think that you making me breakfast… Something selfless that you’ve never done before, is going to make me feel more at ease?” John chuckles. “On the contrary, now I’m thinking of what favour you may be asking for.”

“I’m insulted, John,” Sherlock teases. “Haven’t I made my affections clear enough by now?”

A prickle of anxiety touches at John’s stomach again. “Affections?” he repeats.

Sherlock furrows his brow and takes a step towards John. “You don’t think I only consider you as a sex object, do you?” he asks.

“Well… No, I guess not,” John admits. “It’s just difficult to think about. I’m still getting used to all of this.”

Sherlock’s face softened into a smile once more. “Sit, John. the coffee is almost finished, and I’ll start the eggs.”

John finds himself sitting, and watches Sherlock as he cracks a few eggs into the pan, scrambling them expertly (the first time he’s ever seen the man do something food related in the kitchen).

He’s silent, until the dark haired detective hands him his plate and mug of coffee, and sits down himself.

“How is all of this going to change?” he blurts out, then realizes what he’s said has made no sense. “I mean… Is it just going to be what we were before, with sex?”

“Certainly,” Sherlock shrugs. “I enjoy your company, John, whether or not you happen to be clothed.”

John wants to ask him more, like how he’s so sure that they won’t be caught, or when he realised he liked men, or even how he could make such a good scrambled egg yet never bothered to tell John, but he accepts that answer and eats the rest of his meal in silence. It feels like the less they talk about it, the easier it is to handle. It’s better to avoid looking at a sin right in the face, John decides.

“I want to make this easy for you, John,” Sherlock murmurs.

As if it were that easy.

 

A week passes, and true to his word, Sherlock keeps mostly to himself. Occasionally he’ll kiss John’s head as he passes by, or wrap his arms around him tightly while the doctor is doing the dishes, but aside from that he lets John initiate everything.

And, as ashamed as John is to admit it, they did fuck one other time, a few days after Sherlock’s breakfast. He hadn’t been able to help it, the way Sherlock had looked with a towel around his waist…

Besides, it was in the shower, which perhaps made it more palatable. The evil of what they were doing washed right off.

The most difficult part about all of it was being in public. Everywhere he went he was certain that everyone could figure it out, that it was obvious. John knew that he was being paranoid, but in his defence, he was like this the first time he’d had sex of any kind.

At least Tesco’s wasn’t very crowded this evening. The shopping is easy to take care of, and John allows himself to get lost in his thoughts as he picks up three cartons of milk, and goes over his mental list once more.

Did Sherlock melt all of their cheese with a laser again, or was that just the jack?

A sudden shriek jolts John out of his daze, and he drops everything, soldier/doctor/detective mode in gear.

Three aisles over, in the desserts section, a young girl lies sprawled on the ground. A small crowd is beginning to form around her, panicked voices rising.

John’s doctor personality takes control over the other two, and he pushes through quickly.

“I’m a doctor!” he insists, pushing some people away as he reaches the girl. “Someone call emergency, and give us some space!”

Christ, she’s young, he realizes as he looks her over. Seventeen at most. She’s small, and her long black hair is splayed above her body. Her arms writhe, and her head bobs up and down in an epileptic spasm.

_Oh God, what’s wrong?_

There’s no bracelet indicating a medical issue, and on a quick glance to her wrist John sees that she’s still more than a hundred days away from meeting her Soulmate.

She groans in pain, and John tries to shush her. She grabs his arm, and her eyes open, tears in them.

“It’s going to be --” he tries to console her.

“I didn’t mean to,” she whimpers, the pain she’s feeling obvious in her voice. “I didn’t want to hurt it… I couldn’t… I couldn’t… I’m sorry sir… I didn’t want it…”

John furrows his brow in confusion, still trying to elevate her head, when he catches sight of her light skirt.

Blood begins to pool from her groin into the fabric, spreading across the teal article.

Bile fills his throat as he tries to hush the girl again. She’s so young. Too young. But she was also too young for a child, too young to be alone, much like he was at her age. Too young to take pills they said would kill the fetus but would also kill you.

 _What have you done?_ His mind screams at her as he rocks her.

 

* * *

 

The paramedics load her into the ambulance with a painkiller, a blood transfusion and a promise to take care of her, and John can only hope that what she’s taken hasn’t already liquefied her insides.

He takes the tube home, needing to be away from a talkative taxi driver tonight. The sounds of people on their mobiles, the buzzing of the electric automatic train, they all fade into one incessant hum, one John tunes out, or tunes in, anything to keep from thinking of her face.

He hadn’t lost someone in a long time. Not in such a painful way. Not since the war.

He trudges all the way to their flat, pushing the door open with a deflated movement.

Sherlock is standing at the counter, his eye pressed into the sight of a microscope and muttering to himself.

At John’s entrance, he glances up. “Hello,” he hums, and turns his head back to his experiment.

And just like that, something crashes over John, and he takes the three strides to Sherlock, grabs his shoulder, and collides their lips together.

Sherlock makes a shocked sound, one that delights John, and he pulls the detective closer, kissing him as hard as he can.

They both pull at each other, Sherlock’s experiment lies forgotten on the counter in preference to John’s body. They gnash, bite, grope each other, and John pulls Sherlock by his shirt into his bedroom.

There, Sherlock takes control again. He wraps his arms around John and covers his face in kisses, before pushing him onto the bed.

John gasps, his eyes locked with the detective's, his porcelain doll man, as the other man undoes John’s trousers, and pulls them down.

He starts to palm John’s erection through the fabric of his pants, and bends his head. John knows what he’s about to do, and jerks into a sitting position, and grabs Sherlock’s shoulder.

“No! Wait…” he gasps. “I want to please you… Teach me how to please you…”

Sherlock chuckles, and crawls up onto the bed, undoing the buttons of his shirt as he does so.

He throws the shirt to the ground, and John revels in that sight, letting it fill his mind, and Sherlock takes his hand.

“First… I like my back being stroked…” he murmurs, guiding the other’s hand to his spine, and pulls John into a deep, tender kiss.

*

“I just don’t understand. Is contraception so difficult to get these days?,” John whispers after the fact, lying in Sherlock’s arms.

Sherlock shakes his head. “These past few years the State has really been putting an iron fist down on it,” he says. “Those accused of selling to minors get practically life in prison.”

“But she was able to find something to kill herself with.”

Sherlock shrugs. “Things have changed,” he explains with a sigh.

 _No shit_ , John can’t help but think. When he was her age, he was able to buy condoms from an art teacher.

But he does also recall a rumor after he’d moved for uni that the same teacher had been arrested for anti-State Conspiracy.

“Was it not dangerous while you did it?” he asks quietly, running his fingers down Sherlock’s chest.

“It was… But it was different. There weren’t the raids that there are now.”

“What did you deal?” John asks quietly, suddenly incredibly curious to hear what Sherlock’s past was. Anything to get the smell of blood out of his mind.

“Well, condoms, obviously. They were the most lucrative choice,” Sherlock said. “I also sold the Patch. That I’m rather proud of -- women who hadn’t liked the pill went to me, and as I was one of the only ones selling it I had a very loyal customer base, and it was much more inconspicuous. I kept them in a bandage package; if the police did search me they just found a first aid kit.”

John could see it -- a young Sherlock, with his dark billowing coat, giving an officer an innocent look that wouldn’t have fooled them at all. _“I get cut easily, sir. I carry band-aids with me all the time!”_

John nuzzles into Sherlock’s chest, trying to forget.

He runs his fingers down Sherlock’s arm, stopping at his wrist, and kisses it. In the moonlight he can see the white line where a Watch once was, where it had been removed, but there’s another white scar beside the line, that looks like a branding.

“Is that an ‘A’?” John asks in disbelief. His heart sinks once more, as he knows when convicts have their Watches removed, the ‘C’ they receive is by branding.

“Antisocial,” Sherlock says, chuckling, but John hears his voice break in the word, and sees the pain on his face.

Something pulls at John’s heart again, and he pulls Sherlock into the tightest hug he can imagine, squeezing him until both of them are out of air. Even then, he remains on the detective’s chest, and soon drifts asleep, knowing full well that his dreams will be full of dark haired boys screaming in pain as doctors band him, and little girls bleeding to death.

He’s in the middle of one such dream, when a sharp ping brings him back into the living.

He grunts in confusion, and Sherlock shifts, leaving John to fall onto the pillow.

He watches through squinted eyes as Sherlock grabs his mobile, just as another ping lights up the screen. The blue light illuminates his face in a sickly glow.

“What is it?” he asks.

“We’ve got another case,” Sherlock sighs. “A big one, it seems.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's so short! But this really seemed like the only natural end, and it does kinda work... All about character development as John gets used to Sherlock in a new way. New case as soon as I get my act together!
> 
> Feedback always welcome <3


	6. 48d08h58m

_ Harry’s wedding is in a week. John is home from medical school to help prepare, and already he’s bored out of his wits. _

_ Somehow his sister has roped him into spending the entire day with their father while she goes out with a friend, and John is stuck fishing for the afternoon. _

_ They’re alone on the lake, and they’re silent, like they always are. _

_ His father clears his throat, louder than he usually does, and John looks at him expectantly. _

_ “I know you’re probably thinking about your own Soulmate,” the man grumbles. “I just wanted to tell you… Don’t be in too big a rush. When it happens, it all goes so quickly, and you’ll miss the days like this, when you were free.” _

_ John raises an eyebrow and turns back to the water, thinking of what an arrogant bastard his father was, to really think that being alone was better than to be with someone, especially when the man’s Soulmate was John’s mother, the most wonderful-- _

_ “I tried my best with your mother,” his father suddenly continues. “She died when you were so young, I know you still think the world of her. But you never saw her bad side. We both tried so hard, but she was younger than me. Smarter than me. And… Well, she never said it but she wanted more. She didn’t understand how a star like her had an oaf like me for a Soulmate. I don’t either, if I’m honest. _

_ “I know we don’t see eye to eye on much. I know you don’t think much of me, and I know I failed you. But I tried.” _

* * *

 

John hurries to get dressed, still groggy and mostly unaware. He checks his mobile as he grabs it. It’s hardly four in the morning, he realises with a groan.

“What is this again?” he mumbles, unable to keep from yawning.

“Bombing of a government office,” Sherlock explains easily, tapping at his phone with one hand as he shrugs on his coat with the other. “We were specifically requested.”

John grunts. “What office?” he asks. “Is your brother okay?”

“Yes, he’s fine, I would have gotten an alert if he was the one harmed. They haven’t told me which office.”

John struggles into a jumper and nods sleepily, following Sherlock out the door just about blindly.

John practically falls asleep on Sherlock’s shoulder while they ride in the cab, when the detective’s mobile pings again.

“Ah,” he mutters. “It was the Soulmate Allocation Bureau.”

That makes John jolt awake, and he looks at Sherlock in shock. The SAB often dealt with bomb threats, ones from Conspirators, anarchists who believed the State was anti-freedom and wanted to destroy the entire government. But they’d never succeeded in carrying out plans.

Until now, it seems.

Sherlock doesn’t say anything more, and instead taps taps away at his mobile, concentrated on whatever updates he’s receiving. John can only watch, and ruminate worriedly over what might have occurred.

The taxi pulls over several blocks away from the Soulmate office, but already there’s a long stretch of yellow tape blocking off the road. The moment they step out, John can smell the fire, the stench of burnt brick and smoke. He knows that smell well. There were several missions where insurgents would burn their homes instead of get caught, or in some cases John and his men were instructed to start the fire themselves.

His stomach churns, and he does all he can not to throw up as they start walking towards the flashing sirens.

The destruction is just as bad as Afghanistan. Rubble covers the street, windows are blown out in buildings yards away, and the Soulmate Office is completely decimated. It’s nothing but ash and smouldering ruins now. John can only stare in shock.

Sherlock stands beside him. “Five casualties,” he mutters. “A few of their engineers was working late.”

John shivers. He can’t process this, he’s still in shock. How could someone do this?

“It’s about bloody time you both showed up,” he hears a growl from behind them.

John turns. He doesn’t recognize the man in front of him, but he looks older, with grey balding hair, stands in front of them, wearing a police vest and a tired, annoyed expression.

Sherlock raises an eyebrow. “You didn’t arrange a car to pick us up, so we had to make due with a taxi,” he says. 

“Well, we’ve all been waiting around for you to show up,” the man mutters. Sherlock narrows his eyes.

“You were the one who requested us.”

The inspector scoffs. “Me? No. If I had it my way I’d keep you as far away from this case as I could.  _ He _ demanded you come.” He points to a small crowd before stomping off, and Sherlock and John both glance over.

The man in question stands precisely in the centre of John’s vision. The looks are hauntingly familiar. Dark hair. Immaculately pressed suit. Frightening demeanor.

_ Moriarty _ . That official who grilled them after their first case.

The man locks eyes with John, and the doctor can’t help but shiver again. There’s something unnerving about the other man, and he has to turn away.

But it’s no use, as Moriarty soon makes his way towards the two of them.

John glances to Sherlock, and is surprised to see how stiff the other looks. His eyes are calculating and guarded, as if he expects Moriarty to turn into a viper at any moment.

Honestly, John isn’t completely sure such an assumption is wrong.

“Mr. Holmes, Dr. Watson,” Moriarty purrs, giving them a grateful nod. “I’m so glad you were able to make it.”

“Dr. Moriarty,” Sherlock returns in a stiff voice. “A terrible tragedy… It was such a shock to hear.”

The other man furrows his brow and lets out a breath, shaking his head now. “I had just gone to bed when I got the call,” he says, his voice shaking perfectly. “I was just here myself an hour before. It’s been my worst nightmare, for this to occur. The moment I heard the news, you popped into my head. These Conspirators, these  _ monsters _ , must be brought to justice, and you and I both know you’re the only one who can do that.”

Has he rehearsed those lines, or did he just come up with them?

Silence falls onto the three men. It’s only for a few seconds, but this is an eternity for Sherlock not to speak, and John looks up at him concernedly.

The man’s entire face is scrunched in, his brows pressed close together, yet his eyes are wide, his lips are pursed. If John didn’t know better, he’d say the man was confused.

“Obviously,” he finally responds, the word drawn out slowly.

That is apparently enough for Moriarty. “Thank you, from the bottom of my heart and from the State,” he says. “There will be a great reward for the two of --”

“That won’t be necessary,” Sherlock says, back to his snappish self. “Solving the crime is enough of a reward.”

Moriarty smiles, an expression that looks demonic in the darkly lit, ash filled atmosphere. He says goodbye to the two of them, and slithers away.

John stands in shock for a few moments, but as usual Sherlock is quick to head back to work. The detective makes his way over to the wreckage.

John follows after him, and for the first time forces himself to look at the bombsite. Or, more appropriately, what’s left of it.

Rubble covers the entire street, and the SAB is now practically a crater. One part of a wall remains, only a few feet high, and two corners of scaffolding stand, warped and charred.

Whoever died in this had to have been completely destroyed, the damage looks so great.

Sherlock stares at the wreckage, his face worried, and something deeper lurks in his eyes. As the man bends to pick up a piece of shrapnel, John realizes that he’s mourning, taking in what a tragedy this is.

They stand about for several minutes, although John isn’t sure what evidence they can get from this crime scene. Everything they could use is gone.

Finally, Sherlock turns to the group of investigators combng through the site. “I need to know all the details on the bomb used,” he tells one of the younger officers. “Anything that’s salvageable. The make, where it was from, if it was domestic or foreign, what created the detonation, everything.”

The boy furrows his brow with a scoff. “Why? The bomb went off, what’s the use in looking into it? Our jobs are to find the bastard who did it.”

Sherlock had just turned away when the boy spoke, and he turns back with a deprecating look. “Oh, is  _ that _ what we’re doing?!!” he shouted. The boy flinches, but John couldn’t find any pity for him; he looked to be one of the few cases that truly deserved Sherlock’s wrath.

He has to run to keep up with Sherlock when the other man decides he’s found enough at the scene.

They’re silent for most of the ride home.

“Do you know Dr. Moriarty?” John finally asks.

“Only by reputation,” Sherlock mutters. He stares out the window. “He’s everything that he seems. Cunning. Ruthless.”

“Terrifying,” John provides as the cab slows on Baker Street.

“Yes, that as well,” the detective agrees. 

Was it wrong that among the carnage they’d just seen, John had to admit the most frightening thing at that scene was Moriarty?

They trudge back upstairs to their flat; Sherlock drops his coat on the floor, and John duitifully picks it up. But at this point he doesn’t have the energy to be annoyed.

“And what do you think about the bombing?” he asks.

Sherlock shakes his head. “Something’s off,” he mutters. “No group of Conspirators has the kind of power, let alone is organized enough, to pull off a bombing of the main Bureau building.”

“They’ve done it before.”

“No. They’ve placed bombs in field offices, assassinated lower ranking officials. None of their bombs have taken out more than a floor. You saw the destruction, that building is  _ gone _ . Someone rigged each wall with military grade explosives. That’s the only thing that would cause such total annihilation. Do you really think no one would have noticed someone installing bombs on every floor?” He’s started pacing the floor manically, clenching his fists.

John stares at Sherlock blankly, his little sleep starting to affect him again. “But what other explanation could it be?”

Sherlock sighs, and shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he says.

By now, John knows him well enough to know he’s lying. 

 

Sherlock works through his mind puzzles throughout the entire night, while John gives up and goes to sleep. The detective is still standing precisely where John left him the next morning.

“Any progress?” he asks.

Sherlock looks over at him slowly, like he’s surprised to see the other there. He probably is. “Not particularly,” he mutters. “I’ve been racking my brain for a significance of date but cannot find any. If there would be a reason to bomb them on this night, at that hour… Why not bomb the building at ten the following morning? You’d kill off just about everyone in the bureau.”

“Guilt,” John says immediately. “Believe it or not, Sherlock, it’s rather hard to kill hundreds of people with one press of a button. Most people try to avoid that, even if they are traitors. Morals tend to get in the way with all that.”

Sherlock shrugs. “Maybe,” he mutters reluctantly.

John furrows his brow. “So this isn’t open and shut?” he asks. “I mean it’s not… Obvious?” These sorts of cases seemed far too high profile for the perpetrator to keep low. He’d half expected to wake up to see Sherlock fuming at being handed such a ridiculous case, but the man looks… lost.

Sherlock is silent for a moment. “No one has claimed the attack.”

John raises his eyebrows and blinks. “Really?”

Sherlock huffs. “Not a word out of any of the known groups.”

John blinks again. The facts of the crime are slowly dawning on him, as well as the implications. Their Soulmate Bureau had been bombed… All the files and research on citizens’ Soulmates were gone. Well, there were computerized copies, there had to be, but for the younger children, how would they calibrate their Watches to the right time when they’d meet? Who the hell could do this?

“Could it be an international terrorist group?” he blurts. “Some government who got through the embargo and wants to --” 

Sherlock looks up and gives John a glare so cold he has to physically step back. “Are you going to keep asking me questions?” he snaps.

John swallows, and nods. A sharp pain hits him in the chest, perfectly concentrated in one point in his heart, something he tries to push down further. “Sorry,” he mumbles, and retreats into the kitchen to work on breakfast.

The morning passes by slowly. John doesn’t bother Sherlock again, only comes by him to give him a mug of coffee and refill it as the detective flips through more and more webpages.

When Sherlock’s phone pings, it makes John jump. The detective snaps at it, and John watches as he eyeballs ping pong across the message. “Finally. Preliminary results are coming in from the lab.”

“About the bomb?” 

Sherlock turns and looks at him with a raised eyebrow. “Obviously about the bomb,” he mutters, pocketing his mobile.

Trying to ignore that stinging again, John follows after him quickly, clumsily putting his shoes on. He doesn’t dare ask anything else.

This is obviously the right call, as Sherlock remains uncharacteristically silent on the ride to the lab. Usually by now he’d be blabbing about what exactly they would be looking for in the results, at least John thinks so… Suddenly he can’t quite think of what Sherlock was like on regular cases.

And something still didn’t seem quite right, why Sherlock had been called on this case. Surely whatever the genius could find in the lab results, so could the police? What could be so hidden in chemical tests and shrapnel measurements that only Sherlock Holmes could figure out?

But then again, what the hell did he know? He was just an idiot. Sherlock obviously thought so, despite how tender and soft his touch had been last night. Now everything was back to… whatever this was.

The lab tech in New Scotland Yard is a middle aged woman with huge, thick glasses, who has a small tic of shaking her head. She looks born for this job, with her inability to make eye contact and her obsessive pointing at numbers.

John’s dealt with bombs before. He’s watched detonations go off and he knows the difference between different materials and the ‘care’ in making a bomb. Insurgents’ bombs were always obvious; they were hasty, underbuilt and only detonated half of whatever target they were hitting. One knew that it was them when there would still be two or more walls, or only a corner missing, or simply a fire. The villages torched by another Royal Squandron were obvious because there would be nothing left.

But even with his limited knowledge of bombs, John still has absolutely no idea what most of the things the bomb tech says as she goes over each detail. Something about metals. Something dignified something. But, if he’s not completely off his ass, she’s saying that the bomb was sophisticated, professional quality. Not a hack job.

Which would also eliminate most Conspirator groups.

John is about to turn to Sherlock to see his reaction, but as he turns the door suddenly slams, and he realizes Sherlock has swept out of the room again.

_ Dammit. _

He follows after him quickly, but makes it out of the building just as the detective is whisked away by a cab.

John calls him four times before giving up. He’s a grown man, he can do what he wants… Even if that involves leaving John behind in the dust.

Somehow that reality hurts, now that they’ve slept together.

And this emotion makes John angry, because it is ridiculous. So he’s stroked Sherlock’s cock a couple of times. That doesn’t mean anything else has changed. It doesn’t matter that Sherlock is still the prick that he always fucking is, and doesn’t care about anyone else, least of all John. Obviously Sherlock’s actions of sucking John off last night didn’t make him think to invite John along with him wherever he was going, so why the fuck should John change anything?

_ It doesn’t matter _ , he reminds himself on his own ride back to their flat. He goes up to his own room when he arrives, flopping down on his cold bed with a huff.

For the first time in at least a week, he looks at his Watch.

48d08h58m.

For once, the numbers make him feel slightly queasy, as if it’s a countdown to another deployment, not to the woman he’s destined to love forever.

 

By the time Sherlock comes back--hours later-- John has cooled down. When he hears those fast, heavy footsteps on the stair, he admittedly can’t help but feel another flash of annoyance at being left out, but he doesn’t boil over. He isn’t about to act like a girl upset at her boyfriend for not inviting her to dinner enough.

“Where were you?” he asks, pointedly keeping his gaze on the pasta sauce he was cooking (for two, although he knew Sherlock would not eat it because of the case).

“The crime scene,” Sherlock says, as if it’s obvious.

“What were you looking for? I thought they were clearing up the debris today.”

Sherlock hangs up his coat and shrugs. “I was gathering information. Deducing what I could about the attack.” He doesn’t give any other explanation.

John stares at him in silence for several moments, until the sauce begins to bubble and overflow. He huffs, and turns off the stove quickly before marching over to Sherlock.

“That’s it? You spend all night thinking last night, tonight you look at one bomb analysis, stare at the crime scene for several hours?” John asks. “You never do this. Send one of your homeless network people out to look into it, hack into some illegal site again, fight someone!” He wasn’t planning on being angry, but now that he’s shouting he can’t stop. “This is a fucking terrorist attack and you spent an afternoon  _ deducing _ ?!”

Sherlock sighs, sounding frustrated, and looks up from where he’s sitting. “What do you want me to do, John?” he asks. “Take on a guerilla group of Conspirators? Study a piece of rubble until the precise size of the bomb is clear? Infiltrate a group and take them out like a sniper?”

“That’s what you do for every other case!” John snaps. “This--for God’s sake, Sherlock, this is important. The minister of SAB has asked you personally to help!”

Sherlock is silent, which makes him even more angry.

“This attack is against everything our entire nation stands for!” he yells. “Records, childrens’ future, they’re gone! They have to start all from scratch with so many--”

“Shut up!” Sherlock snaps, jumping up and towering over John. “I’m aware of what the situation is!”

“Are you?” John asks. “I’m fairly certain you would act a lot more concerned if you were aware that this will ruin people’s lives! Because of these lunatics there are children who will never find their Soulmates because the Watch can’t count--”

Once more he’s cut off, all rage disappearing at the look of disgust on Sherlock’s face.

“Are you serious?” the detective asks him, his voice low.

“What?” John asks.

Sherlock sucks in a long, hissing breath, and lets it out. The breath drags on for so long that John wonders if this will deflate him.

“So once that little screen ticks down to zero, you’ll meet your precious, beautiful,  _ fertile _ Soulmate, and you’ll be together forever and ever?” he asks, his tone beginning monotone but eventually landing on mocking.

John stares at him, unsure of what to say. “Y-yes…”

Sherlock rolls his eyes. “You do still believe all this ridiculousness? After everything you’ve seen?” he asks. “You still believe that fucking fairytale of your magical Watch knowing precisely where and when you’ll meet your perfect mate, the person who you’re  _ destined _ to be with?! All because of that lovely, future telling watch?!”

John swallows, desperately trying to think of a comeback. “What the hell else would it be?” he asks, still feeling pissed as hell.

“It’s a fucking GPS, John!” Sherlock shouts. “That’s all it is! No magical ties between the two of you, you’re just two people the government believes will make pretty babies!”

John blinks and stutters, wanting nothing more in this moment to deny everything Sherlock was saying, but he has to confess he’s wondered everything the man has mentioned.

“Ever noticed each Soulmate belongs to the exact same class, the exact same race? Don’t let the poor folk see how their rich Soulmate lives, after all, that’d lead to panic! Chaos! Better keep them low down, keep their children dumb and poor! Tell them that’s  _ how it’s meant to be _ !”

“You don’t know everything, Sherlock!” John blurts, although he’s certain that’s the wrong thing to say.

And, to his rage, Sherlock just huffs and turns away. He stalks out of the room, but pauses just at the threshold to glare back at John.

“So, if this lovely Watch nearly everyone has is supposed to lead them to the love of their life,” he says coldly, “name one pair of Soulmates who actually are happy.”

 

John doesn’t sleep well that night. Perhaps he was too harsh on Sherlock. This was by far their most high profile case, the one with the most stakes. Sherlock probably didn’t know what protocol would be here either. This wasn’t a case of theft, where a hypothesis was allowed to be proven wrong, they had to be right the first time.

But why did Sherlock demand to be so frustrating about it? John could understand him having difficulty, but the man acted like the case was already solved.

And then he stayed up for several hours more, wondering if that truly was the case.

 

Sherlock is sitting in his chair when John stumbles down early that next morning, looking like he hasn’t slept a wink.

John fixes himself some coffee, and brings a mug over to the other. He stands in silence in front of Sherlock for a few moments.

“I’m sorry that I accused you of not caring last night,” John murmurs. “I… I’m so used to you being a genius that I forget that you aren’t unstoppable.”

Sherlock finally looks up at him. His expression is unreadable, but there’s a hint of regret in it. He wraps his arm around John’s leg, and John moves closer, crouching down to Sherlock’s level.

The detective grazes John’s lips with a kiss, one that John tries to lean into to continue, but Sherlock’s already pulled away.

“Have a good day at work,” is all the man says with a soft sigh.

John swallows, his heart picking up speed. Why was the other pushing him away?

“What are you going to do today?” he asks.

Sherlock shrugs. “Well, as you stated, there is still a case to solve.” His voice has a sharp edge. “I may go to the lab. Run some tests of my own. Or survey the crime scene once again. Or, like you said, ask one of my homeless associates to snoop about.”

_ May _ ? That’s not right. Sherlock never deals in uncertainties, he makes up his mind, and executes his decision.

An uneasy feeling fills John, something akin to fright. Suddenly he wants nothing more than to call the clinic and tell them to sod off, to curl up in Sherlock’s lap and beg him to say what’s on his mind, and hold him for the entirety of the day until he feels safe, until there are no longer terrorists out there who can even get past Sherlock Holmes.

Most importantly, he wants to kiss the other again.

But instead he turns away and makes his way out of the flat, to work.

 

John already knows what to expect from the clinic. It’s what always occurs after a hideous attack: a surge of mass hysteria, people rushing in to look at symptoms they’d been avoiding looking at for years, or believing to have some symptom related to the attack. Overwhelmingly of course they were nothing, but somehow John found relief in them. After all, octogenarian Mrs. Raw’s creaky arm was easy to diagnose, easy to assure, and it allowed him not to think about Sherlock for a few minutes.

But those thoughts still snuck in.

When his day ends at 1700, he takes his time packing up. He doesn’t want to go home, back to Sherlock and the unease he felt around the man recently.

He deliberates for a few moments, staring blankly at his eye test chart while he thinks. He needs someone to talk to about this, someone who knows Sherlock and can give John some pointers on how to handle him, or at the very least let him know if this is normal behavior.

Finally, he dials Greg’s number in his mobile and calls him. As far as John could tell, they’ve known each other since Sherlock was in uni after all. If anyone knew Sherlock’s grumpiness on a case, it would be him.

The call rings 5 times before it goes to voicemail.  _ “This is Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade. If you need to report a detail about a crime, please call…” _

John hangs up. So much for that. The man was probably involved in his own cases right now, asking him about this was probably going to be too much for him.

Who else could he possibly ask?

Well, there was Mycroft, who arguably knew Sherlock the most out of anyone else, and for the longest time. Yet every time the brothers were near each other they both acted stiff and cold, and it wasn’t hard to deduce that the two had had some bad blood in the past, although for his part at least Mycroft seemed willing to bury the hatchet.

But Sherlock was uncomfortable around his brother, for whatever reason, and to go behind his back and ask Mycroft about him seemed like a betrayal. After all, John knew he wouldn’t be too keen himself if he found out Sherlock had sought out Harry to discuss him.

Finally, he bites the bullet and calls Sherlock himself. What he needs to do is speak to the man himself, perhaps they can get to the bottom of this themselves. They  _ need _ to, after all, they’d seen each other naked, they’d seen the other completely disheveled and--

_ “Leave a message.” Beeeep. _

Fuck, he hates that voicemail.

John huffs and hangs up, at a loss of what to do. He’s left the clinic by now, and walks along the sidewalk past the various medical practices. He needs to clear his head anyway.

He walks for a few minutes before he realizes he’s on the same block as St. Bart’s. He stops at the entrance, and sighs, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

Sherlock mentioned a lab.

John shifts on his feet. Is it even worth it to try to talk to the detective again? Nothing would change, he’d still be grouchy and John would just feel upset once more.

But… it seems like Sherlock needs someone now.

John sighs, and shakes his head before he heads into the hospital building.

The nurse doesn’t question him when he flashes her his doctor’s ID (although it technically isn’t valid for this hospital), and he wanders into the personnel hallway and staircase.

The basement where the morgue and lab are have always felt spooky to John, even when he was a resident. They don’t bother making this part of the hospital roomy and attractive, instead the hall is narrow, and the fluorescent lights flicker and buzz as John walks through. The hospital must have not thought it important, as no live patients were going to need the doctors here.

The morgue is locked, and he can tell by peeking in that no one else is inside. On the other end of the hall is the lab, and he can see even from where he’s standing that the door is ajar.

Hushed voices echo on the metal walls as he gets closer, a male and a female, although they’re too quiet to pick up anything else. 

The first thing he sees is Molly Hooper and Greg Lestrade, locked in a passionate kiss. Molly sits on the lab table, her shirt is completely unbuttoned, and Greg’s hand rests on her bare hip.

They both jerk away from each other at the creaking of the door, and Molly’s eyes widen.

“John? What the hell are you doing here?!” she asks, in the most confrontational he’s ever heard from her. She pulls her shirt tightly around her chest

“I--I was looking for Sherlock,” John gasps, shock filling him. “Sorry!” He backs away quickly, backtracking to leave the hospital as quickly as possible.

He’s halfway down the narrow stretch when he hears Greg.

“John!” 

John stops and turns, feeling his face warm when he catches sight of Greg walking towards him. He’s fully dressed, but John still shies away from him.

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” Greg sighs.

John shakes his head. “It was my fault, I should have knocked…” By now the shock was beginning to wear off, and his mind started processing the information. 

Greg. Molly. Greg has a Soulmate. 

Greg apparently can see this realisation, because he clears his throat, drawing John out of his thoughts. “Okay, I can see that you’re… having difficulties with this.”

John swallows, and shakes his head. “I’m sorry, I know this is none of my business.”

“... But you know now and you feel like I’m betraying my Soulmate trust,” Greg finishes. John looks up at him, and nods, embarrassed.

Greg grimaces, but his expression is kind. “You know about my wife, I’m sure,” he murmurs. John tries to feign ignorance, but the other man waves his hand. “It’s fine, John. I’d have been surprised if Sherlock hadn’t told you. But you know about her, and this… I mean, how is this worse?”

“But that doesn’t help anything,” John can’t help but insist. “Hurting her isn’t going to fix your Bond, and dragging Molly into it… For God’s sake, you’re a detective inspector, you know this is illegal!”

Greg furrows his brow, and draws back in confusion. “What?” he asks. “John, how is this any different than your relationship with Sherlock?”

John feels his heart sink, and his eyes widen. Greg did know. Were they that obvious? “How did you…?”

Greg looks even more confused. “I assumed that was why you moved in with him,” he says. 

_ What _ ? No, that couldn’t be. Why would he think that they’d been together…

“Look, John, how about we get a pint and some dinner and talk things out, okay?” he asks. “Just… just to settle things.”

John nods slowly.

“I’ll just tell Molly we’re leaving… I’ll meet you outside.”

John nods again, and heads back upstairs.

 

They go to the pub they always go to. It’s quieter than other establishments, and they sit in a booth in the corner to avoid any eyes.

“I know it’s a bit hard to understand, John,” Greg says softly in between bites of a sandwich he’s ordered. 

John sighs, looking down at his beer. “Well, as you said, I’m hardly one to talk,” he says, and takes another large sip. “But this… This makes you happy?”

Greg smiles a bit, the most genuine one John has ever seen. “It does,” he says. “Molly is a remarkable woman. When I talk to her, it’s like I’m being listened to for the first time. She’s so brilliant and kind, it’s like…” he stops, and shakes his head. “I’m sure you don’t want to hear the whole thing.”

John shakes his head. “It’s fine,” he says, and feels a small twisting in his stomach. Perhaps two days ago he might have been able to say the same thing about Sherlock, but by now that fog had lifted and he’d been rudely reminded of the other’s real standoff nature. “How long have you been… seeing her?”

“One and half months?” Greg says. It sounds like a guess.

“Does your wife know?” he can’t help but ask.

Greg shrugs. “We haven’t talked about it,” he says. “But I think she knows something. If only because I’m no longer moping about when she comes home late at night.”

_ Give me just one pair that are happy. _

“What made you do it?” John asks, his voice quieter now. Even with his wife’s indiscretions, Greg was always loyal, a law abiding man. 

The grey-haired man purses his lips. “It was after that case with the Dragon Jewel Thief. Sherlock was being a real prick throughout that whole thing, I’m sure you remember. After you two finished and, well, did whatever you did,” he waves his hands, “Molly and I went out for a drink, mostly just to loosen up after Sherlock breathing down our necks. I drank a little too much, ended up passing out on her couch. The morning after, when I was apologizing for being such a twat, she just… it was like I’d never seen her before. And things went from there.”

Greg chuckles. “Christ, look at me,” he said. “Never thought I’d be the type of man to step out on my Soulmate. But I never thought she’d be the type to step out on me.” He shrugs. “Maybe that’s why we are Soulmates to begin with, we’re both hideous beings.”

John shakes his head quickly. “No, Greg… None of us are perfect,” he says.

Greg shrugs again. “Yeah, I’ll drink to that,” he says, taking a sip of his own pint. 

They sit in silence for some time, Greg eating his sandwich, and John picking at his shepherd's pie. 

Finally, Greg clears his throat. “So, you and Sherlock weren’t initially….” he waves his sandwich-holding hand, as if to imply some action.

John feels himself blush, yet he finds he’s far too willing to divulge into this discussion. “No, we… it only happened recently for us too,” he admits. He doesn’t want to give the whole story of how it happened, not right now, so he quickly tried to think of something else to sa. “Could I ask why you thought we were… from the beginning?” What is he supposed to call it?  _ Together _ ? No, that sounded… proper. Not like what they were.

Greg shoves a handful of crisps into his mouth before he speaks. After chewing them slowly, he shrugs, and he looks a bit sheepish. “Honestly, the only men I’ve seen him associate with are lovers,” he admits. “And when you came into the picture, he seemed rather attached to you.”

_ Attached? _ No, that couldn’t be right. Sherlock never was attached to anyone, that was a point of pride for him. This whole thing, after all, was just letting off steam.

But it still makes his heart skip a beat to hear. “So… You knew about his, er, tastes?”

“Sure,” Greg says. “It was a long time ago. He was barely out of school, I think. There was some case where the suspect was homosexual, and when Sherlock found out, he was absolutely livid.” He grits his teeth and winces, as if the memory was still fresh. “I’ve never seen him so upset; the man looks downright terrifying when he loses it.” He lets out a breath, and shrugs again. “But, well, there really was only one reason why he’d be so angry about such a thing.”

_ And you never reported it? _

John feels guilty at even thinking such a question. Sherlock behind bars, locked away with real sexual fiends makes him want to vomit. But, logically thinking (Something Sherlock would be proud of), why wouldn’t have Greg turned him in? The law was the law. If Sherlock ever was caught, it would go back to Greg, and he’d be fired, if not sentenced himself for aiding and abetting.

“I don’t understand how I got to be like this,” John sighs. “How any of this works.” The beer is starting to get to him by now. “With you. Your Soulmate. How she… hurts you. How my sister’s… Well, he’s a fucking maniac. And Sherlock doesn’t even get one, he’s destined to die alone when he’s…”  _ Brilliant. Beautiful. Marvelous. Fantastic in bed. Kind, when he wills it. _

Greg nods, flagging down a waitress to get them another round. “Well, I can’t speak for your sister, and Sherlock’s case has always weighed on me, but for me… Well, I’ve always thought that maybe I was meant for Julia, once, but that we changed,” he says. “We were happy in the beginning, after all. But I was just starting my career with the Yard, maybe we both… became different people. People who weren’t meant to be together.”

For some reason, that response makes John think of his parents, a subject he tries to avoid thinking about for the most part. Were they happy together? 

He doesn’t know. He remembers them fighting, sometimes, and he can remember the two of them sitting together at his clarinet recital. His mother died before proper memories of them could take place, all he really had was what other people told him throughout the years. His mother was brilliant, he was told. Top of her class, could debate anyone on any subject and come out on top. And, from his own knowledge, his father was not. 

Once, while staying at his aunt’s home, he overheard her say to her own Soulmate,  _ “If only she had met him later, after she finished her schooling…” _

She was young when she became pregnant with John and Harry. He didn’t know her exact age but he knew she was hardly thirty when she died. She had to leave uni when they were born.

They got along. He was fairly certain of that. But they didn’t seem in love. Had they been, before children, before his mother had to give up all of her dreams to become a mother and grown resentful?

_ But what the fuck was the point anyway _ , she still died within ten years of meeting his father.

And then he himself died ten years after that.

Suddenly, he wants to cry for the tragedy of his parents’ story.

Before he knows it, John’s finished practically three pints, and he suddenly remembers the pressing question he had earlier this afternoon.

“Greg… Have you ever known Sherlock to give up?” he blurts, interrupting whatever discussion they were having about football teams. 

Greg chuckles, looking properly un-sober himself. “What do you mean?” he asks.

“With this whole bombing case, he’s just been… sitting at home. He claims he’s solving it, but he’s only been to the crime scene twice,” he mumbles. “Has he ever stopped working a case halfway through before?”

Greg’s smile slips, and he considers it seriously. “No,” he finally says. “Never. Even when he hates the case he’s given, I’ve never seen him stop until he figures all the details out.”

John stares at his hands, and quickly finishes the rest of his pint.

 

He stumbles home some hours after that, feeling pleasantly tossed. Unlocking the door poses a bit of a difficulty, but it’s no match for him, and he manages to teeter into the living room where he can see Sherlock still sitting, as if he never moved.

He stops in front of the other, and they share a look.

“You figured out who bombed the building before we left the scene,” John says, swaying on his feet. “You’ve known who was responsible this whole time.”

Sherlock looks up at him, and narrows his eyes. “Yes,” he says slowly, guardedly.

He doesn’t say anything else.

“And you didn’t say anything?” John asks. “Why didn’t you even tell me?” As he says it, he knows the answer.

“Because I knew how you would react.”

“Who was it?” John asks, crossing his arms, and trying to stand still.

Sherlock doesn’t answer.

“Sherlock. Tell me.”

Sherlock huffs, his hands clenching. “Him,” he mutters. “The bureau.”

And everything crashes on John. He feels as though the floor has opened up, there’s nothing for him to latch onto… “Why?”

“Because there is no other explanation,” Sherlock mutters, his voice becoming agitated. “The bomb was army grade. Implanted strategically. It didn’t take out a floor, it took out the entire building! There had to be multiple fuses, multiple blast points. Tell me John, would you notice if someone brought in multiple bombs to your place of work?” He shakes his head, his hair falls about his face. He looks slightly crazed. “No one has access to such a high volume of dangerous government weapons.”

John suddenly realizes he’s sitting in his chair, although he doesn’t remember doing so. “You think Moriarty bombed his own department?”

“I know!” Sherlock snarls. “This doesn’t follow the manifesto of Conspirator groups. Trust me, I knew plenty of them in uni. This is organized.”

_ I knew plenty of them…  _ no, no time to think about that.  _ Fuck  _ why was he drunk? “Groups change. There have been more attacks lately… They could be--”

“And then not take responsibility for it?” Sherlock asks. “John. I have looked at every other possibility. The weapons came from domestic land. Military. Enough to fill a warehouse. And no reports of stolen goods from the army. Not recently, at least, but there was an arsenal that was stolen fifteen years ago. When the new Bureau building was under construction. When a certain official we both are aware of was just getting his start.”

John swallows. “Why?”

Sherlock falls back in his chair. He looks positively exhausted. “I think he wants to test me,” he mutters. “It’s impossible. I cannot solve it. I cannot make an accusation against him, not without completely destroying myself.”

John is silent for several moments. He’s trying to wrap his mind around what Sherlock is suggesting, but the beers he had make his brain slow, and he can’t reach a conclusion, can’t understand, can’t figure it out…

“If it were a real attack, they wouldn’t need me,” Sherlock mutters suddenly. “Bombs are easy to trace, terrorists are easy to catch. Or they could just check their database of all the Watches, see who was in the building who wasn’t supposed to be.”

John looks up again. “What?” he mumbles.

Sherlock shakes his head, staring off into space. “Looking for someone in connection to a crime would certainly be illegal, but in a case like this no one would have noticed. They’ve done it before, after all.”

Panic begins to rise in John’s chest, as well as bile. His world feels like it’s crumbling, like when he had to identify his father’s body or when he saw a little boy press a button and get blown to smithereens in front of him. “Stop,” he begs, his voice shaky. “Please stop talking.”

To his surprise, Sherlock does as he asks.

John finds himself beside Sherlock, in another short drunken blackout. He’s curled up against the other man’s side, with Sherlock’s arm around him.

“So what do we do?” John asks quietly.

“I don’t know,” Sherlock replies.

John looks up at him, and Sherlock shifts his vision down to John. They stare at each other for a long moment, as if it’s still a question at this point, before kissing.

This one is different than usual. There’s no rush, no pulling, no wrestle for domination. This is just slow and tender, and John clings to it, as if without this kiss he’d die.

With his fuzzy mind, he remembers them standing, and Sherlock practically carrying him to the bedroom. It’s dizzying, but somewhat exhilarating, although he’s certain that if he wasn’t shitfaced he’d be furious at Sherlock for doing so.

They don’t make love, or at least not really. Both of them are far too tired for the act itself, but they hold one another, kiss tenderly, intertwine their bodies as best they can.

John’s heart is pounding, and he squeezes Sherlock as tight as he can.

“What do we do?” he asks again.

He can feel Sherlock’s chest contract as he lets out a sigh. “We give in,” he says quietly. “Admit defeat. Say the case is unsolvable. It’s the only viable option.”

John’s heart sinks. Leaving a case open, letting a criminal go free, claiming to have been beaten he knows is the worst thing Sherlock could ever do to himself. But the only other option would lead to public ruin, not just embarrassment.

The discoveries of today are too much for him. Greg and Molly, Moriarty being a domestic terrorists for the sake of humiliating Sherlock… That, along with the beer, makes his eyelids heavy.

Sherlock pulls away to look at John’s face. “Don’t worry about me,” he murmurs. “My ego can handle this. It’s been through far worse.”

John shuts his eyes, and shakes his head.  _ It isn’t fair. _

“Besides. Now I have you. I can handle anything that comes our way as long as you’re here.” He smiles softly, and strokes John’s cheek. “I need you, John.”

John swallows, and leans into the touch. He can’t even describe that warmth that rushed through him at those words.

“Just… don’t lie to me anymore,” he says quietly. “Please.”

Sherlock nods slowly. “Alright,” he murmurs simply, as if it’s that easy.

Eventually they settle against the mattress comfortably, Sherlock lying on his side facing away from John, and John on his back.

It’s raining outside, and that’s all John can hear as he brushes a finger down Sherlock’s spine. His own palm faces towards him, and the small dull numbers glow lightly in the dark room.

39d12h27m.

The date is getting ever closer.

He hasn’t told Sherlock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for how long/late this is. It was difficult to find a right ending point, and everytime I got on a roll life became busy. Review, kudos, bookmark, etc :)


	7. 17d03h14m

_The organ echoes throughout the small chapel, and John fidgets with his lapels, which are too crisp and starchy for him._

_He hates funerals._

_He’s aware that this doesn’t make him special, but his aversion to them is nauseating, skin crawling. Maybe it was because his mother’s funeral happened before he’d accepted her death (the therapist his father makes him go to thinks this), or maybe that was just where he discovered this (that’s what he’s chosen to believe)._

_He stares down at his suit because if he listens to the preacher, he just might throw up._

_To his left, Harry keeps kicking her feet in an obnoxious pattern, until their father hits her shoulder. She huffs in his direction, and crosses her arms._

_His grandmother reaches out her wrinkled palm, and John touches it slowly, running his fingertips along her skin which feels like a sheet on a bed. Finally he squeezes her hand, and only in the comfort of this contact that he is able to look up._

_The chapel is small, but it’s packed to the brim, and these John knows are just the close friends his grandfather had. He wanted his service to just be the ones he loved, John knew._

_He recognizes all of them, from the summers he'd spend with his grandparents._

_One woman, though, standing against the wall with tears streaming down her face, he doesn’t know. She’s got her grayed hair tucked in the black hat she wears, and she wears no make up, something odd for a woman her age but with how much she’s crying John doesn’t blame her._

_“Who’s that?” he asks his grandma quietly._

_“Her?” she turns and looks in the mystery woman’s general direction. She scoffs. “Just his whore.”_

 

* * *

 

Eventually, the news story of the terrorist at large fades, the culprit is vaguely alluded to being some Heretical, anti-State insurgents. Within just a month the headlines turn back to celebrity pregnancies, controversial interviews given by heads of states.

17d03h37m

John stares as the pixels fade into a 6 on the minute count. One minute closer.

He sucks in a slow breath, and sips at his coffee.

Sherlock hasn’t questioned him about his odd behavior, although John is certain that it must be obvious. But he’s noticed that Watches seem to be Sherlock’s weakness; the man never checks anyone’s Watch while they’re out, even when they’re on a case, even when Sherlock is trying to think of motive. Yet to John it seemed so important. Wouldn’t knowing if someone had a Soulmate, or if they were days away from meeting her, affect whether the person was a suspect or not? Very few people would commit murder a week before they’re destined to meet their Soulmate, after all.

But who knows. He’s just a simple citizen, not the smartest man in the State.

Sherlock begins to move around noon, John can hear the sleepy shuffling coming from the other’s room. Recently he’s been sleeping there more often than his own room, those walls becoming less and less foreign.

“Good morning,” the detective yawns as he pads into the kitchen. His hair is a mess, his eyes squinted, and a sheet crease is still evident on his cheek.

“Good afternoon,” John returns, for a moment forgetting his moral quandary and smiling at how ridiculous Sherlock is. “What time did you end up falling asleep?”

Sherlock grunts, pouring himself some of the coffee John brewed and opening various cupboards to find the sugar (even though it is in the same cupboard it always is… Something else Sherlock Holmes, mastermind and owner of photographic memories has declined to stash away). “Before dawn.”

John chuckles. “Glad to hear that, at least,” he says. “And what are you going to be doing today?”

Sherlock sits down beside John and takes a slow sip of his own mug. “Haven’t thought that far ahead.”

The detective is in an astonishingly good mood, and had been all week, despite John’s worry over their last case, and how it was going to play out in the long run. He imagined that Moriarty had some public humiliation in store for Sherlock, some snarl about how he had entrusted the man with this tragedy, how he had failed…

Yet there was nothing. The bombing still was on the news fairly frequently, but the focus was the aftermath, the rebuilding, how society would strive forward.

It seemed that Moriarty’s plan for Sherlock was more personal shame, to force him to sit on the answer, and let only the ones who mattered -- Scotland Yard, for instance -- to know that he hadn’t been able to solve the crime of the century.

“Want to just lie in bed and have sex all day?” Sherlock’s question sends John’s train of thought to a screeching halt.

Another thing about this good mood is that it makes Sherlock even more blunt that John could have imagined.

“Well, someone has to get us groceries today,” John quickly stammers, feeling his cheeks warm up to his absolute horror. How is it that Sherlock can make him feel like an inexperienced, shy schoolboy all over again?

“There’s takeaway. Get them tomorrow.”

“And breakfast tomorrow? We’re down to our last two eggs.”

Sherlock purses his lips, then thins them into a testing smile that makes John shiver. “Fine, how about all day aside from the hour when you’ll demand to get groceries?”

John lets out a slow breath, and nods despite himself. How can he turn down such a logical and well argued plan? “Yes, I can do that.”

“Glad we’re in agreement,” Sherlock says, and takes John’s hand.

“May I do the grocery shopping first?” John teases, squeezing the hand and leaning against his hand to smirk at Sherlock. “Won’t want any distractions after all, will we?”

“John, you’re absolutely brilliant,” Sherlock says, letting go of the hand with a smirk of his own, letting it pick up his coffee mug instead.

John stands and smiles softly at Sherlock, and tries not to let the small, probably sarcastic comment get to his head too much.

He grabs his wallet and keys, patting his pocket for his mobile when he suddenly hears it ping by the entryway dresser.

“You could have just told me where it was!” he calls out to Sherlock as he grabs it.

“Hm?” Sherlock hums from the other room, sounding oblivious.

John turns on the screen, and freezes at the door.

_Hello Dr. Watson. I believe it’s time we had a chat. ~Dr. James Moriarty_

 

The cafe Moriarty tells John to go to is the most high class one he has ever seen. It has a shiny, Pre-Revolution decor, with red sewn chairs and varnished gold for the legs of the table. At the bar is an old fashioned looking coffee machine, and an older man shuffles behind it.

“Ah, there you are,” comes that weasley voice, right behind John, making him jump. “I was beginning to think you might be late.”

John turns to Moriarty, who is as usual wearing his pressed suit, with a scarlet red tie. Now that he’s so close to the other, John can also smell his cologne, a sickeningly sweet floral scent that makes him want to step away, yet also figure out which flower it was infused with.

“Shall we sit down?” the government man sweeps his hand to the mostly empty dining room. John stays where he’s standing, knowing that Moriarty has no intention of letting John choose.

Sure enough, the other man leads them to a table with loose chairs, directly in the centre of the cafe. Anyone would be able to see them. This isn’t some secret meeting.

“Nicola, two coffees! And make them double,” Moriarty calls to the old man behind the bar, who nods and waves awkwardly to John. He looks incredibly uncomfortable.

“Have you ever been here?” he purrs, and even before John shakes his he head continues. “It’s a marvelous place. Only the purest of coffee, you can’t get anything else here. Try as I might I simply cannot recreate what they do, it’s something about his arm movement when he grinds them, I swear.” He nods over to the old man as he pours out some beans. “It’s an Italian style, where Nicola’s from… Got in right before the embargo. And thank goodness for that. I have no want for anymore of his people, but if there’s one thing those heathen Catholics know how to do, it’s make coffee.”

John doesn’t respond to that. He hasn’t any idea if it’s a trap, or if Moriarty has just decided to indulge in some secret prejudices to him, but he isn’t taking any chances.

They sit in silence, Moriarty pretending to glance about the dining room, while John tries very hard not to think about the fact that he is sitting across from one of the most effective terrorists in the entire State.

Their coffee comes, and Moriarty grins, immediately taking the mug from the waiter. As he does, his cuff slips down his wrist, and John catches a glimpse of the other’s Watch.

It’s blank. Not black, like what occurs when one meets their Soulmate, but blank.

The only times he’s seen that is on a corpse.

“Oh, by the way, how’s our Sherlock doing?” he asks, as if they were just having a normal conversation.

John tenses. There it is. _What does he want?_

“He’s been fine,” John says, slowly, wishing more than ever that he had Sherlock’s knack for deduction, just to see what the fuck Moriarty was getting at. The man pinches at his wrist, as if disposing of lint, when his entire outfit of course is immaculate. What does that mean?

“That’s good,” Moriarty sighs dramatically, sipping slowly at his coffee. “I’d been worried about him. You know how hideous that case was… although I have to confess, I thought Sherlock Holmes would have been able to solve it if anyone could have.” There’s a hint of glee to his voice, although John can see the almost physical contortions the man has to go to in order to mask it. “Such a terrible crime. I can still hardly sleep. How someone could be so depraved, I can’t understand.”

 _He knows I know_. This wasn’t entirely a surprise, but John suddenly feels like a mouse, being toyed in the two paws of a house cat.

“I suppose you’ve got more of an inkling of what it would take though, wouldn’t you?”

John stares in shock, his heart picking up speed. “Pardon?” he asks, forcing his voice to it’s regular volume.

“Why, John, you haven’t tried your cuppa yet!” Moriarty exclaims, tutting. “Come now, don’t you trust me? It’s a very good cup.”

John stares at Moriarty, now beginning to consider the possibility that his cup has been poisoned. But what other choice does he have? He blows carefully on the cup, and takes a slow sip.

There’s a rich sweet taste, before the bitterness of black coffee explodes in his mouth. He swallows it, and nods. He has to admit, it is a good cup.

Moriarty smiles sweetly. “I was referring to your rebellious phase, Watson,” he purrs. “Covering up your Watch with tape, and telling your sister to leave her one and only. It was just ten years ago, wasn’t it?”

 _He’s trying to provoke you, don’t let him provoke you_ , Sherlock’s voice suddenly comes to his mind, and John shrugs, although he can feel his heart pounding even more. “How did you know about that?” he asks, clearing his throat as casually as he could. “I… Well, I was young. Harry was having a rough time. It was before I understood.”

“Have you ever considered that you walked right by your Soulmate during that moody phase of yours?”

 _All the time._ “I was never involved in Conspiracy activities, Dr. Moriarty, and I am a bit insulted that you --”

“Oh hush, I’m not accusing you of anything.” Moriarty rolls his eyes. “I know you would not be so dull, Dr. Watson. Not when you have so little time left.” He nods to John’s left wrist, and John reflexively yanks that arm into his lap.

“Aren’t you excited?”

“Very.”

Moriarty cocks his head. “That’s all the enthusiasm you can muster?” he teases. “It’s only what you’ve been waiting for your whole life.”

“No offence, sir, but I do hardly know you. I would feel uncomfortable telling you all of my thoughts on the matter. It’s a rather sacred moment, after all, I wouldn’t even know where to begin to tell you.”

This apparently pleases Moriarty, who smirks. “That is true,” he admits. “Alright, Dr. Watson, I’ll stop badgering you about it. But I will offer you my premature congratulations.”

With that, he takes a large gulp of his final dregs of coffee, and begins to stand. “Unfortunately, I cannot stay for much longer. I still have to speak to Parliament later this afternoon… And I haven’t looked at my speech yet.”

John nods, standing, relieved to maybe get out of this. Moriarty reaches his hand out, and John takes it.

Suddenly the other man yanks him closer, so close that John can feel the man’s stubble against his ear.

“We both know that your little schoolboy tantrum in uni isn’t your only strike against the State,” he hisses, and suddenly John can hear the precise voice of a madman who allowed a building to blow up with six people inside. “Beware of Holmes. He’s beyond saving, but you can still escape the filth of his kind.”

Then he’s gone, and John wants nothing more than to puke.

 

When John arrives back at the flat, with two bags of measley groceries he’d gotten because he was convinced Moriarty would tail him, to see if he came running home, Sherlock ambushes him. He pushes him into a wall and kisses him hungrily, but John quickly pushes against him.

“Sherlock --”

“The groceries can wait,” he purrs, biting John’s ear in a way that he knows will make John’s knees buckle. “You didn’t buy anything frozen, they can stand thawing.”

“No, Sherlock --” John gasps and pushes him away again. This time, Sherlock steps back. His face immediately grows concerned, and before he can start deducing whatever he’s trying to see, John speaks.

“Moriarty knows,” he chokes out. “I saw him today, he knows --”

“What?!” Sherlock demands, his face growing into a mixture of disbelief and anger. “Where did you see him? Was he following you?” John must have a guilty look on his face, because Sherlock shakes his head. “You scheduled a meet up? What the hell were you thinking?! Why didn’t you tell me?!”

“It was right as I was leaving!” John insists. “I didn’t tell you because -- I didn’t know what he was planning. He seems obsessed with taking you down, I didn’t want to risk him going after you.”

“And what if he had kidnapped you?” Sherlock demanded.

“That’s not the point!” John shakes his head wildly. “He knows about us, Sherlock!”

“No, that’s impossible.” The anger fades from Sherlock’s face, the disbelief crowding it out. “I’ve gone through every precaution. What did he say? What were his exact words?” He’s stepped close to John again, staring at him intently.

“He said… He said that you were beyond saving, but that I could still rise from the filth.”

Sherlock suddenly whirls around, his hand going to his head.

“Could someone else know?” John demands, his heart beginning to pound as he saw how nervous Sherlock was too.

“No,” he says immediately. “No one else knows.”

“Lestrade does!”

“Lestrade is different!” Sherlock snaps. “He wouldn’t betray me!”

“But if he knows --”

“No one else knows!” Sherlock faces John again, his eyes wide. He sucks in a deep breath. “I meant what I promised. I’ve done everything I can to ensure no one else knows about us.”

John swallows, feeling his eyes burn with tears that he desperately tries to wipe away. He wants so desperately to believe that… “Then how does Moriarty know?” he asks.

Sherlock takes a step back, his eyes suddenly going to the ceiling of the room, darting around. “I don’t know,” he mutters. “Unless…” The man suddenly lurches, and before John can even process it, the detective is on the coffee table, then the desk, causing hundreds of papers to scatter to the floor.

“Sherlock, what the hell are you--” with his nerves so fraught as they were, John could hardly take this as well.

“Sh!” Sherlock snaps. He runs his fingers along the crease of the wall and ceiling, almost as if he’s pulling on a string. He reaches a certain point, then yanks hard.

And with his hand comes a black cord.

John stares, dumbfounded. Sherlock jumps off of the desk, holding the cord and what looks like a small microphone attached to it in his palm. “What is…”

“Pitchers have ears,” Sherlock mutters, dropping the thing and grinding his heel into the microphone.

John feels dizzy, and before he can stop himself he dry heaves. He grips the end of the couch, trying very hard to keep his breathing under control.

He can hear Sherlock say something, that rumbling baritone drifting through his ears, but he can’t catch the words.

“I knew it,” John hisses. “I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you, I knew I should have never gone down this path, I knew this would happen!” He grips the side of his head, and stares at Sherlock, who stands a few feet in front of him with his arms crossed. The man looks fairly calm, or at least not panicking, which makes John even angrier.

“This is your fault!” he shouts. “I didn’t want to do this, you made me!”

“I didn’t make you do anything, John.”

“Yes you did! You dragged me into this… I never even thought of doing this before I met you, oh my God…” What was going to happen to him? “And now some fucking psychopath who blew up his own building knows! He’s been spying on us! You don’t think anything is going to happen from that?!”

“John --”

“No! Don’t tell me this is all going to be okay! It’s not! This is wrong! Everything that we did is illegal, wrong, sinful, unnatural --” Oh Christ, he sounded like his eighth year gym teacher, and where the hell was Sherlock going now? “We’d deserve all the treatment we get when they lock us up!” He just about screams at Sherlock’s back, who now is in the kitchen.

He huffs, waiting for some response, some reaction that can make him yell again, but instead all Sherlock does is get something out of the cupboard, and pour hot water into John’s mug with whatever tea he’s found.

“Drink this,” he says as he comes out, handing the mug to John. John stares at him in fury.

“What the fuck? Do you really think some fucking tea is going to make this alright?” he snaps.

“No, but you’re very distressed and that isn’t going to help,” Sherlock sighs. “I’m upset too, but we need to keep our heads. Panic is what he wants.”

“Are you serious?”

“John. There could be more microphones in the flat.” Sherlock pushes the mug closer to John, more forcefully. “Drink it.”

John scowls, but relents, and takes a slow sip. “This conversation isn’t over, Sherlock!” he snaps, his blood still boiling. “Tea doesn’t make this better!” He stops, finding that he has to take another sip with how hoarse his voice feels

The tea is sweeter than John would like. He can tell Sherlock added sugar, something he never does, but the earthy herbal flavour still lurks in the background, and he’s learned long ago never to refuse when Sherlock does something kind. He takes another large gulp, if only to show Sherlock that he was cooperating.

“What the hell are we going --” John blinks, his mind suddenly going blank. What was he saying? His anger falls out of him like an emptying glass of water, and he can’t quite get a grasp on the conviction he’d just had.

“I --” His feet feel heavy. He stumbles, barely managing to position himself in front of his couch before his legs give out and he falls onto it. The mug falls from his hands to the floor with a sharp crack, but he can’t react. The world feels so slow.

 _Goddammit_. “Did you… drug me?” he hisses at Sherlock, who still is watching him calmly. Now he can’t move anything aside his neck. “You… bastard…”

And darkness.

 

It’s dark out when John comes to, and the first thing he’s aware of is his massive headache. He grunts, and moves to touch his forehead. The moment he moves his hand the sensation of pins and needles erupts through his arm and he gasps in shock, squirming at the discomfort.

A light across the room goes on, and Sherlock is illuminated under the shadowy warmth. He’s sitting in his own arm chair, reclined with calculating eyes.

“Before you get angry with me, I had no other choice,” he says. “You were hysterical. I had to take measures.”

“And drugging me was naturally the first thought you had,” John mutters, trying to sit up, but that action only causes the pins and needles to spread all over his body.

“Obviously calming you down the old fashioned way was going to take a while, and I could hardly assess the perimeter and make sure we were safe while you were screaming in my ear about how we were going to rot in hell.”

Oh, right, he’d said that, hadn’t he? His cheeks heat up in shame.

Before he can apologize, Sherlock speaks again. “There were two other mics,” he says. “One in my bedroom, one in yours. One of the utility men Mrs Hudson hired must have been a plant.”

Nausea fills John again, and he puts his head in his hands.

“Do you want me to stop talking?”

“No,” John groans. “Tell me everything. I need to know.”

Sherlock pauses. “About a month ago I noticed the for rent sign leaving the building across the street,” he says slowly. “But there were never any movers.”

John lifts his head up, stares.

“I didn’t find any cameras in the flat,” Sherlock continues. “But… we both already know that perhaps he prefers to watch through far off windows.”

 _The bullet that killed the cab driver_. The memory of their first case sends shivers down John’s spine. How long had Moriarty been watching Sherlock?

“I’ve already closed the curtains,” Sherlock assures him.

“What’s the point?” John moans. “He already knows! He could do anything --”

“No,” Sherlock sighs. “He’s not going to do anything. He could. He certainly has the evidence. He’d have a bit of difficulty explaining how it’s all illegally obtained, but he’d be able to snake around the issue. But instead he told you, knowing that you’d come and tell me. It’s all a part of his game.”

“Why?”

Sherlock leans back. “I don’t know,” he confesses. “Honestly, I don’t think he cares about us, not in a moral sense. I don’t think he believes in any part of his job. It’s just a means to an end. Get power. Sew chaos. Reap the benefits. But I… I jeopardize that, in a way. I have no belief in the system either, have no stake in it. Which makes me dangerous. I have nothing to lose if I did decide to burn this all to the ground. Perhaps that frightens him. Or perhaps he’s merely intrigued by my intelligence, and just wants to add an extra flavour to whatever psychotic fantasy he has.”

“But he _knows_ ,” John insists. “And Greg knows… That could mean anyone does.”

“I told you --”

“Yes, you _said_ it all would be fine, but what if you slipped? You aren’t perfect!” John clenches his fists, and flinches at the sharp pins that rush through his arm. He winces and tries to concentrate on what he was speaking about. And Christ, that headache!

Sherlock sighs, and gets up. “The headache and numbness is a common side effect,” he says, and disappears into the kitchen again. John tries to turn, but that proves to uncomfortable, so he tries to stay as still as possible.

Soon the other returns with a glass of water, and hands it to John. John narrows his eyes, and Sherlock pauses, realising John’s hesitation. He takes a sip of the water himself, then holds out the glass once more.

John stares at him for about a minute, then finally nods and takes the water.

“John, you don’t know much about my family, and I plan on keeping it that way,” Sherlock sighs, taking a seat once more. “But there is a certain aspect of them that I admired, and that I’ve kept. Promises are blood oaths. Either you keep whatever you’ve sworn to do, or die trying.” He leans forward near John. “No one else knows. There is no way for them to.”

John can’t help but wonder what sort of family Sherlock had been born into, where some moral code embedded in their DNA was to die for secrets.

“Besides, you act as though I have no stake in this either,” the detective sighs. “You think I want to be caught? You could plead your way down. Say that I’d seduced or taken advantage of you, or at the very least bring in your many ex-girlfriends to prove that you can function as a heterosexual lover. I’d have no defence, just a very long line of male paramours. At the very least I’d be confined to solitary confinement for the rest of my life, if not the Chair.” Before he can stop it, an image of Sherlock trapped in the darkness of those small cells, his skin emaciated and paler than now, rushes into John’s mind. “It’s for my benefit as well as yours to keep quiet.”

John is silent, and takes a large gulp of water to hide the quietness.

“Mycroft, Anthea, and Lestrade are the only ones who know,” Sherlock insists. “I would know otherwise.”

John still remains silent.

“John. Please speak to me,” Sherlock sighs. “Even if you’d like to yell again.”

John finally shifts into a sitting position, grunting at the sharp pain. “It’s--” he huffs, and can’t help but chuckle. “Is it bad that the main thing I keep mulling over is your mention of a long line of ex lovers?”

Sherlock blinks, and he looks almost surprised. Soon he smirks, and lets out that low, deep chuckle that always makes John shiver.

John laughs softly too, and soon the both of them are unable to stop laughing. But even then it can only last so long, before once more reality sinks in. John had committed a serious crime, despite what his current feelings were on the law now. Someone knew, and that person was powerful, and had some vendetta against Sherlock.

“Sherlock…” John sighs, after his laughs have faded.

“What?” Sherlock asks.

“How did this happen?”

“Which part? The cosmic sense, or how did we end up in this precise situation?”

John shrugs. “Either, I suppose,” he sighs. His headache is finally starting to fade, but the rest of him still feels beat too.

“Sorry, John. I’m afraid I can’t answer either question,” Sherlock confesses.

“Do you think he’s going to do anything? At all?”

Sherlock shakes his head. “Not about this,” he says. “But… He’s playing at something. Obviously his ploy with you this morning was some part of the game to him. But I have no idea what his goal is at the end of it. He has everything he needs to destroy me but he hasn’t.”

John shivers at how casual Sherlock says this, when it fills John with terror. Without Sherlock, what would he be?

“So we just… continue on as normal?” he asks.

Sherlock nods slowly. “There’s not much else we can do otherwise, can we?” he replies. “If you’d like to give this up, I would understand. You’re beginning to see the risks involved, after all, and I do have to warn you that they don’t go away.”

John swallows. “I don’t want to stop this,” he whispers.

When he glances up, he swears he can see a touch of a smile on Sherlock’s lips. “Neither do I,” he says.

Somehow, he finds himself back into Sherlock’s arms again.

“I imagine tonight is a take away night?” Sherlock guesses, rubbing John’s back. John nods, too exhausted to think of a snappy comeback.

“I just want to sleep,” he sighs. “Put some distance between today and tomorrow.” The feeling of numbing terror for him was similar to the fright that was a daily occurrence on the battlefield. Eventually one learned how to compartmentalize, keep the dead men’s screams separate from the oatmeal in the mess hall, but occasionally they’d seep in, nestle into areas and memories where they shouldn’t, leaving a soldier with a sudden strike of genuine terror and instinctual need to survive while he was brushing his teeth. It was what caused men to suddenly murder their families years after discharge, or to run through the street naked, and while John as of yet managed to keep himself in control, he remembered that itch. It came to him most nights he fell asleep, when a song that a now-deceased captain always played came on the radio. It was a slow ache that burned inside his stomach and made him want to vomit and cling to some form of intimacy.

So he does cling to Sherlock for the entirety of the night, falling asleep far earlier than he has in ages, while the detective taps away at his mobile. He has no idea what he’s doing, but the exhaustion makes it hard to care.

Sixteen days.

 

Their physical flings are quick and rushed now, as if they’re teenagers, trying to get off as quickly as possible before a parent returned home and could catch them in the act.

They pretend as if nothing is wrong. John goes to work with his soldier’s facade. Sherlock occasionally experiments or solves cases for someone to whom he owes a favor.

When John falls asleep on the couch one afternoon, he hears Sherlock grilling Mrs Hudson on the stair.

“Did anyone come in? Have you had any handymen come round? When did you leave? When was the house empty?”

And even when he hears her voice waveringly assure Sherlock that she was home all afternoon, moments later Sherlock rushes into the flat, andJohn  watches him silently as he tears apart the room, searching for another microphone.

The curtains remain shut.

Still, they both know Moriarty is watching. For John it’s the frightening feeling that occupies him every day that everything they’re doing as precautions is nothing, that everything they do is simply playing into his hands. He’s a mouse, thinking he’s safe while Moriarty sharpens his claws and gets ready to pounce, just out of view.

And his damn Watch for the first time in his life is finally counting down with a consistent timer, which terrifies him as much as it excites him. It’s everything he’s ever wanted, _at the worst possible time_. He can’t think about his Soulmate right now, not while he’s trying to keep him and Sherlock out of jail.

But still, it ticks down, second by second, matching his heartbeat.

Sherlock remains oblivious to the entire thing, which astonishes John more than anything.

 _You need to tell him_ , he thinks, just about every hour, every time he looks at his Watch and sees that it’s one hour closer. _It’s not fair to him_.

But what can he say? How can he tell Sherlock that he’s going to be meeting the love of his life soon, and so this will have to stop?

Breaking up was always easy. There were rarely hard feelings. After all, how could any girl claim to be led on when both of their timers were still ticking down?

But with Sherlock… Well, every aspect of their relationship was different, why would it be similar in this way only?

On a certain level he doesn’t even want this to end. Thinking that makes his heart pound, as if Moriarty will be able to read his thoughts, as if he’ll be thrown in jail for thinking sinful things.

This has to end. Sooner or later they would get what’s coming to them.

But John still clenches his fist every time that machine clicks down.

One night, Sherlock comes home as John is finishing cooking dinner. It’s nothing particularly arduous, just a chicken cooked in sauce, but Sherlock lets out an audible hum when he enters the kitchen.

“Smells delicious,” He purrs.

John hums. “Well, it’s just--” but he’s cut off, as Sherlock suddenly grabs him and twirls him around. “Sherlock, what-- mm--” and then the detective envelopes him in a kiss.

“Can this wait?” John gasps when they pull for air.

“No, I don’t believe so,” Sherlock grins, and pulls John out of the kitchen.

The sudden pulling and moving has made John love drunk, and he follows Sherlock easily, wrapping his arms around the other. “What the hell has gotten into you?”

“What? Am I not allowed to kiss you now?”

“Well…” _It’s just that it hasn’t been like this in a while now._

“One of Lestrade’s lackeys got lectured today,” he gloats, unable to control himself past two seconds. “He made a grave mistake in his lab work, turns out the suspect has a bloodborne disease that, if that test had been done immediately, would have narrowed down the field considerably and saved innumerable Scotland Yard resources.”

“Since when do you care about Scotland Yard resources?” John laughs, now getting pushed onto the sofa.

“Oh, I always care about them when someone else is on the line,” Sherlock sighs. “I don’t think you’ve met this one. He’s skinny as a reed, except for this enormous nose.”

“Oh yes, please Sherlock, continue describing this incompetent man while we make love. I can’t think of anything better.”

Sherlock smirks devilishly. “I thought you’d want to hear about my day.”

John hums, and tries to move out of Sherlock’s embrace, but the other’s strong arms keep him in place. “Sherlock, I do love hearing about your day, but I also should make sure our dinner isn’t charred.”

“Dinner is overrated,” Sherlock insists. “Let it burn the building down, I couldn’t care less.” He buries his head in John’s shoulder, nipping at his collarbone.

“Mm, but that’s how the London Fire started, you know,” John teases, wiggling his way out of Sherlock’s grasp at last. “Don’t want that.”

Sherlock gazes at John, a reverence in his eyes that makes him shiver and back away, cowering into the kitchen to make sure the chicken hadn’t gotten too blackened.

It hasn’t, and John tries to concentrate on finishing the meal while Sherlock nuzzles into his neck again and holds him from behind.

They make love for the first time since Moriarty that night. In a bed, slowly. John slowly takes Sherlock apart, piece by piece, running his hands over every inch of his body as if he’s marble to be carved. His knees, his thighs, his cock, his stomach… How could skin be so smooth?

Even after they both come, they remain interlocked, kissing, still naked and sweaty.

John pulls away after a moment, staring down at Sherlock, taking in his dark curls splayed on the pillow, how rosy his cheeks are in the low lamplight.

Sorrow hits him like a tidal wave, one that stays with him as Sherlock peppers his face with kisses and slips out from underneath him to use the loo.

John takes the opportunity to go to the kitchen, to get some water. His heart is pounding, and it takes an enormous amount of willpower to just turn his wrist to face him.

He stares at the numbers, for a moment unable to understand them.

00d15h08m

_Fuck._

What was he going to do? What was he going to tell Sherlock?

What would she look like?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the patience everyone! Slowly but surely this story is chugging along.  
> As always, do tell me what you think! I am desperate for others' opinions xx


	8. 00d07h08m

_“As we’ve discussed before, much of the propaganda from the anterebellium period was to subvert the natural order, and lure young minds from what was proper and right to the depraved and evil side of humanity. This was to control the public.”_

_John drums his pencil against his desk with a huff. Would it kill Mrs. Haywood to get to the point in less than half an hour?_

_The lights are dimmed, and the whirring of the projection machine makes him desperately want to fall asleep. But the Propaganda unit is going to be 50% of the final, and he already has a C in history, so if he fails he’s going to be held back which means he probably won’t get into his first choice university next year, so he tries to pry his eyes open._

_“We’ve discussed some groups, but the most insidious campaign was homosexuality. Their tact was to be as loud as possible, to force others to see their unnatural ways, and desensitize the public to this horror. Notice how much this ‘pride’ parade is similar to the Nazi marches of Germany. It’s demanding, distracting, and leaves no room but to obey.”_

_She clicks on her remote, and slowly goes through the photos of one London Pride. It’s a barrage of bright colors erupts from the screen, rainbow flags and tutus. A group women done up in bright makeup, yet they were bearded. Girls with shaved heads, only rainbow suspenders covering their breasts, hands raised in the air, mouths open and angry like a war cry. Two women lean in to kiss, on one of their shoulders sits a little girl, who stares off in the distance with a blank expression on her face. Everyone in the room gasps, even John shivers at the depravity._

_The next slide is a video, two buff men wearing the old hats that policemen would wear, and what looks like denim tight underwear, stand on a float, gyrating their hips in perfect choreography._

_John suddenly feels his face grow hot, and his groin tightens reactively to this video. Then it’s the next slide, but he wants her to go back to that video, he wants to watch their hips closer and see what was painfully obvious in those tight pants, and--_

_“Ew! God that’s disgusting!” some kid yells in the back, faux-gagging at the sights. John sinks lower in his seat._

 

* * *

 

John does not sleep well that night. It’s the combination of waiting for Santa to arrive and the night before deployment all wrapped into one. Excitement, terror, back to excitement. He tries to practice meditation, forced deep breaths, clearing the mind, but every time he gets somewhat close to an impasse, his mind would suddenly wonder if he’d know it was her, and his heart would be racing again.

His heartbeat rings so loud in his ears he’s convinced that Sherlock can hear it. But the detective doesn’t seem to notice, having fallen asleep before John even came back from the kitchen (apparently, sex was the only thing that cured the man’s obviously chronic insomnia, aside from finishing a case).

Still, just like Christmas Eve and before he was sent to Afghanistan, John does manage to fall asleep at some point, his wrist tucked carefully underneath him to assuage the temptation to stare at it like a teenager.

The blaring sound of his alarm at first just seems like a bad dream, until the sound grips him by the shoulders and drags him out of his dreams and back into the waking world with a groan.

John opens his eyes slowly, already noticing how swollen they felt from lack of sleep. He blinks, his body fighting the sound that’s told him to wake up, desperate to go back to sleep.

Sherlock moans from beside him, and rolls over with a disgusted look on his face. “Turn it off,” he groans lowly, lingering on the last word like a child whining. He grabs the pillow underneath him and stuffs it over his head.

John is immediately struck with tenderness at how childish Sherlock is being, and wished for nothing more than to continue to tease him by snoozing the alarm and then leaving the room, but then remembers that today he would meet his Soulmate.

All exhaustion in his body disappears, and his heart is back to its panicked pounding.

He turns off the alarm, and gets out of bed slowly and deliberately. He doesn’t even dare to look at the Watch until he has on trousers, terrified that somehow him deciding on the black slacks would delay this further.

00d07h08m.

_Jesus._

He dresses carefully, for once meticulously making sure his collar was straightened and his tie was centered like Sherlock was always insisting he do. He glances down at the bed, where the detective now was sprawled out, still completely asleep.

Something hits John, something like a mix of nausea and desire. It feels weird, and he knows he needs to leave.

“See you tonight,” he whispers to Sherlock, planting a kiss on his cheek. The detective hums, and his lips quirk into a smile for just a moment before he drifts back to sleep.

That could be the last time he ever kisses Sherlock, John realizes, but forces himself not to go back and give him a proper smooch on the lips. That would jeopardize everything that was supposedly going to happen today.

He tries to pretend it’s a normal day. He cooks eggs, toasts bread, sits at the table and pokes at it with his fork. His stomach is knots, however, so it ends up in the trash.

Why bother with the hurrying? It was still 7 hours until he’d meet her.

_Fuck Jesus Christ oh my God fuck. Calm down, John!_

He stares at his Watch during his entire commute to work, standing at the tube with his eyes glued to his wrist.

Was she doing the exact thing, wherever she was going?

He allows himself to fantasize about his Soulmate for the first time since he was seventeen. Back then, he had wanted what every boy in the throws of hormones wanted in a woman: big tits, skinny, a nice laugh, and beyond that he wasn’t too picky.

Now, however, he takes the time to really consider it. Dark hair, he thinks. Tall. Slender. He’d like her to have curves, hips, breasts, but he liked the smaller, more subtle feminine forms as well.

Blue eyes.

Intelligent.

Biting wit.

 _Oh, fuck._ He was thinking of a female version of Sherlock.

Now that he admitted this, he also had to confess that, yes, he could not go back on that fantasy. For the first time, he truly wished Sherlock had been a woman, because then they surely would have been Soulmates.

He was an asshole. The biggest one John had ever met. Yet there was something about his smirk and the way his voice glided over his deductions that made John’s knees weak. They got along so well, the two of them. They would be Soulmates, surely, if only…

He sighs, forcing it out of his head before it festers in his brain. Why bother focusing on what could never be, after all?

He gives one final glance to his Watch before leaving the tube station. 00d05h27m.

He wants to throw up.

The clinic is dead, thank God. He’s in right on time at 9am, and his heart is in his throat. To pass the time and get rid of his nerves, he reorganizes his entire office, dusts the tops of the cabinets, reads over journals he has meant to go over for the last year.

Time goes by damningly slowly. Each case is just a roadblock he must pass in order to reach those zeros on his wrist. Refill on iron supplements. Stomach flu. A woman wondering about fertility, although she and her Soulmate had only been trying for five months. John finds himself tapping his feet, trying to hurry it along. He’s stopped looking at the Watch, knowing if he does it will just cause him to panic more than he needs to.

His mobile buzzing around eleven makes him jolt to attention. He grabs it on instinct, but when he sees Sherlock’s name on the sender, he immediately pockets it once more. No, he doesn’t want to think about that aspect of all of this right now.

“I’m going to lunch,” he says to the supervisor when he can’t take it any longer.

She looks him up and down, and frowns slightly at his fidgeting. “Are you alright, Watson?” she asks. “You seem on edge.”

“I’m fine. Just low blood sugar,” he says, perhaps too quickly. “I’ll see you in half an hour.”

She doesn’t look convinced, but after their slightly messy breakup six months ago she’s generally avoided talking to John, so she lets him go with a shrug.

John stumbles out onto the street, his heart in his throat now. The thought of eating honestly was making him want to dry heave right there, but he also knows that on an empty stomach he might do something stupid in front of his Soulmate, like faint.

 _Just get tea_ , he decides. Maybe a coffee cake to nibble on between patients, that would calm him down, something to give him a spike of energy.

He heads down the street to where the shops are, where all the doctors and nurses end up after their shifts and during their break.

The plaza is already rather crowded when he walks through, a variety of people in scrubs or civilian wear discussing nothings. The cafe is at the end of the plaza, and John catches sight of the sign with some relief, when a loud beeping catches him off guard.

What the hell? It sounded like an alarm clock, like the one that woke him this morning, he thinks with some confusion, glancing around. No one else seems to hear it, and it doesn’t sound like an evacuation alert.

It takes him a moment before he realizes it’s coming from his wrist. He glances down, and his heart lurches.

0029s, it reads, flashing, counting down as he stares. He’d never seen it on seconds before, he hadn’t even _known_ they beeped when--

Twenty-three seconds! Where was she?! His eyes scan the people standing around, the group of nurses in the corner smoking, the medical students with their textbooks open, no, she’d surely be searching for him too, wouldn’t she?

Should he move? Stay where he is? What if he just walks away from her?

Fourteen. He takes the risk, and walks towards the shop faces. The countdown continues, he must be on the right track.

Six--

Where is she?

Five--

He glances around again, but no one catches his eye.

Four--

Why did it have to be a public place, with at least thirty people all around?!

Three--

He takes a step back onto the plaza again.

Two--

Maybe if he had a better vantage point, he could see which cafe she was in…

He suddenly backs into someone, jostling his back and startling him. He can’t help but gasp, already on edge, and he whirls around.

A petite woman with a felt hat, blond fringe peeking out stares back at him, her eyes wide.

Her wrist is outstretched to her face, like John’s.

_Oh my God._

 

“Hi,” she says softly.

“Hi,” John replies, almost on instinct. “I… My name is John.”

She smiles, revealing a dimple. “Mary,” she says.

In that moment John’s mind goes completely blank. All the things he’s wanted to say, things he’s planned on saying at this precise time all disappear as he stares at Mary, takes her in.

She’s pretty, in that classic sort of way. She has large brown eyes and short blonde hair, high cheekbones… But… is it odd that he had never really thought about a blonde Soulmate?

 _Shut up!_ He hisses at himself.

“Do you have much time?” she asks, breaking John out of his thoughts. “I just got off shift.”

“I’m on my lunch, I’ve got about twenty more minutes,” he murmurs. “I’m a doctor at a walk in clinic nearby.”

“Really?” she grins again. “I’m a pediatric nurse at St. Bart’s.”

John smiles. This has to be right, right? “Want to grab a coffee?”

“I’d love to.”

 

The twenty minutes barely gets them out of their respective childhoods. John stays quiet for the most part, as he doesn’t want to ruin the moment by describing his various early life traumas that would come up if he spoke unadulterated about it. But he listens, or at least tries to as best he can with how his heart is pounding and his mind is racing. It’s happening. It’s finally happening, he’s finally met her… Is this how it’s supposed to go? Are they supposed to know how to talk to each other? Or is awkwardness the natural way? Is there supposed to be some spark where he knows this is right? Is he a Conspirator just for wondering all these thoughts?

He grimaces finally. “I have to go…” he confesses.

Mary’s face falls. “Oh, right,” she sighs. “It’s alright… I ought to get some sleep, I had the morning shift today anyway. Here, before you go--” She stands just as John does, digging around in her purse. She pulls out a felt pen, and grins as she grabs John’s hand.

“This is my mobile number…” she says as she scribbles on his wrist. “Text me when you’d like. We could grab dinner, if you’d like. Do you have a favourite restaurant? I just moved, I don’t know many-- Oh, just text me!” She steps back, still grinning widely.

John can’t help but return the smile. She’s incredibly cute, with her pink lips and petite form.

Wow. Christ. It’s happening.

“I will,” he promises. “As soon as I get a break from patients.”

She sighs and nods, finally allowing John to walk past her and out of the shop. John can’t stop looking at her, even as he steps out, when he has to walk backwards just to keep his eyes on her. Finally, he forces himself to turn.

 

He’s late for returning to the clinic, but he doesn’t care. His supervisor gives him a glare as he walks in, but doesn’t say anything, not yet. Perhaps she’ll bring it up after they close, or maybe she’ll decide it’s not worth having to interact with John.

After a few patients, he cleans and sanitizes his desk before the next one, before it becomes too much and he decides to text Mary now. He grabs his mobile, and sees Sherlock’s text from this morning, waiting, looming like some storm cloud.

_Buy milk on your way home. SH_

John stares at the text, his fingers hovering over the keyboard for several moments. It’s such a simple text. Nothing romantic in it. It’s rather rude, actually, he tries to remind himself. He shuts his eyes and sighs.

It’s not fair. Why didn’t Sherlock get a Soulmate? All he would ever have were the flings he and John had been carrying on these months. There’d be no meaning, no love in them.

And now John would never have to deal with those days again, he thinks with some relief. No random hook ups or flings that dragged on for too long. He never has to deal with that again. He now just had Mary.

His heart flutters now. He couldn’t help but feel excited.

 _Ok._ he sends to Sherlock, and quickly types in Mary’s number from his arm.

_I know a nice gastropub in Whitechapel. I have some errands to run but after, I’ll pick you up._

With that, he pockets his mobile for the last time, and calls in the next patient with the biggest smile he’d had in a long time.

 

The tube is just as infuriating as it always is when he gets off, but John doesn’t mind for once. The throngs of people are just others going about their lives, the smells from the Underground is just character of the place. What does it matter?

He texts Mary a bit. He’ll drop by her flat in an hour, which gives him enough time to talk to Sherlock. She understands this. (“My flatmate was so excited for me too!! We talked about it for ages, take your time with it!! :)” she sends him.)

His heart is in his throat as he unlocks the door to their building. He doesn’t quite know what to say, how he’s going to say it.

He can smell Mrs. Hudson cooking onions, something that makes his stomach growl and churn at the same time. He takes a large breath on the landing, full of that delicious scent, and presses forward, going quickly. Sherlock will not have the elated feeling of Mary’s flatmate, he knows how the man feels about Soulmates, but surely he will understand that this is necessary. He must know this won’t go on forever. He’ll be disappointed. They’ll probably fight again. But tomorrow morning he’ll understand.

The door to the flat is open as it often is, which means Sherlock is in, which means that John can’t hide from this.

He steps in gingerly. “Hey,” he calls out to Sherlock, who’s slouching on the couch, reading some medical journal.

Sherlock glances up, and immediately purses his lips. “You didn’t get the milk,” he says.

 _Oh, fuck._ “No, sorry, I forgot,” John mumbles.

Sherlock stands, and walks over to John. He’s squinting his eyes, the way he always does when he starts zoning in on some minute detail on John’s person, and John knows he’s running out of time.

“Sherlock, I have something to tell you,” he says, as calmly as he can. _Deep breath, and…_ “Today I met--”

Sherlock’s hand flies up so quickly, John thinks for a moment that he is going to strike him, but instead he just holds it up, palm towards John, fingers splayed, like some desperate ‘stop’ motion.

John blinks. “Sherlock?”

The man is completely still, except for the breaths leaving his chest in an increasing rate. His eyes are wide, and his mouth is just slightly open, and he’s staring at John with an almost deranged look. He doesn’t look angry, or upset. He looks… like a wild animal, starving, or one who’s just realized a lion is charging at it.

“Sherlock,” John repeats, fear starting to build in his gut. He wasn’t expecting this. What is he supposed to do with this? “I know you aren’t--”

“Don’t,” Sherlock seethes. “Don’t speak.” He steps back, and drops his hand, but his motions seem robotic, sudden, jerky, not the fluid grace they usually are filled with.

“Sher--”

“I said don’t say anything!” Sherlock snaps, whirling around to face John once more. “Just. Don’t.” He breathes out slowly, and John notices his hands clench into fists. The fear rises again.

John stays silent, glancing toward the exit if he needs it.

Sherlock drops his head, his chest still heaving. John stares at him, his doctor’s instincts tingling to take over, to check if he’s alright.

Just when John is about to break the silence, Sherlock does it for him.

He lifts his head just enough to glare at John. “Get out,” he says, his voice low and cold.

John blinks. “What?”

“Leave. Now,” Sherlock says, just as threateningly. “Come back for your things later.”

John’s body suddenly goes cold. “You’re kicking me out?” he asks in disbelief.

“It’s my name on the lease, it’s my flat, I get to decide if you stay or not,” Sherlock snaps.

John takes another step back. “Sherlock, please, we can talk this out--”

“How, John?!” Suddenly the man’s voice is thunderous, taking up all the space in the flat. “How are we going to talk this one out?!”

“You knew this was going to happen! I can’t stay here forever! Where the hell am I supposed to go?”

“Anywhere! Her flat! That’s where you’ll end up anyway, right?!”

John swallows. There’s nothing more he can say. Sherlock’s lost his mind.

“LEAVE!!”

 

John stumbles down the stairs back into the foyer, in shock. He stands there for a moment with his heart pounding, trying to understand what just occurred.

Sharp, angry dissonant violin notes screech out above him, and John winces. Fuck. That… Sherlock really is in a bad mood.

He should have told him sooner. Let him get used to the idea, John thinks with a sinking feeling of guilt. This was obviously a huge shock.

His pocket buzzes, and he pulls out his mobile, wincing again as a sharp note is belted out on the tortured violin.

_Hey! What’d your flatmate say? Just lemme know when you’re ready for dinner :)_

John sighs, a small flare of hope lighting in his stomach, although it wasn’t enough to douse the feeling of anger and frustration.

_Oh, he was fine. We’re not all that close, so nothing that interesting to report. I’ll pick you up now._

The unharmonic melody continues in fortissimo above John as he heads out of the flat, on his way to meet Mary Morstan, the woman he’s destined to be with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo! Finally here!! And now we can REALLY have some fun with the plot.  
> Thank you for your support with the random breaks. As always, rate, comment, subscribe, etc. I love your guys' feedback!


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